What’s with Baum? By Woody Allen 2025 192 pgs Post Hill Press
To say that this book is entertaining is the understatement of the year. It is vintage Woody Allen humor, a bit dark, sometimes biting, but with a resonance that no one else can master. It is Allen’s first novel. The main character is Asher Baum, a Jewish intellectual and playwright who lives in New York, not as successful or famous or rich as he would like to be. His confidence is at a low level, particularly because his stepson Thane, a self-centered and spoiled “golden boy,” has just published a novel that is instantly a best seller. Baum is insanely jealous.
Baum’s third wife Connie is Thane’s doting mother. She is beautiful and wealthy, also sharp-tongued and combative; not surprisingly, a distance has grown between them, and Asher is forever eyeing attractive young women. Connie insists on living a sophisticated but semi-rural life in Connecticut, while Asher longs for the busy streets and frantic activity of the city–another source of conflict.
When a magazine plans to do a spread on young Thane and his literary success, suffocating angst, bitter envy and barely hidden anger come to the surface in the family. However, Thane brings home a glamorous new girlfriend, whose interests parallel Baum’s, and they strike up an immediate understanding. They are soul mates! When the director of the documentary about the promising young novelist arrives on the scene, the atmosphere gets even more strained.
At some point in the drama Baum invites the young woman to drive with him into the city; each one has business to attend to there, after which they meet for lunch. While waiting for her in a bookstore, Baum strikes up a conversation with a stranger who gives him a piece of information that will change everything. Lunch is a pleasure, and the outing expands as Baum and Thane’s fiancée visit favorite haunts and enjoy one another’s company, while privately Baum is tormented by what he has learned.
The plot holds the reader’s attention and is skillfully unfolded; the characters are absolutely believable. But the real joy of this book is Allen’s prose. It is both perceptive and hilarious. Regret, disappointment and verbal cruelty are in the mix as well. You can’t help feeling sympathy and understanding for Asher Baum, while laughing out loud at his reactions and descriptions. The book’s cover, a sketch of Munch’s painting The Scream, adds to the overall effect. The book is both poignant and moving, another and totally unexpected success for Woody Allen.