Deadpan

Deadpan follows the misadventures of a vaguely anti-semitic West Virginia Buick dealer who wakes up one day transformed into the world’s most popular Jewish comedian. Steeped in magical realism, the narrative confronts pivotal issues of our day: identity, intolerance, tribalism and the redemptive force of humor. 

The story is set during the world-wide oil crises of the 1970s, alternating among locations in West Virginia, Las Vegas, Washington, Tehran, and Sinai, and featuring characters as diverse as Sarah Palin, Mel Brooks, and the Shah of Iran. This phantasmagorical tour-de-force not only constitutes a satirical takedown of antisemitism (and bigotry in general), it is also a dazzling display of human dignity, resilience, and humor.
 

Richard Walter is an author of best-selling fiction and nonfiction, celebrated storytelling educator, screenwriter, script consultant, lecturer and retired professor who led the screenwriting program in the film school at UCLA for several decades. 
 

“Amid a resurgence in global antisemitism and furious identity politics, the nightly scenes of angry mobs and all the grim commentary, we needed a comedic break. Deadpan provides a humorous but serious story of an antisemite turned Jewish comedian, reminding us that the most potent—and underused—weapon against bigotry and hate is farce and laughter.”
— David Bernstein, author of Woke Antisemitism
 
“The manic, comic energy of Richard Walter’s Deadpan is so engaging that you may fail to see the serious intent percolating beneath. An ingenious fable of foibles and fallacies across the multiverse.”
— Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away
 
"They say satire is what closes on Saturday night. If Richard Walter’s Deadpan were adapted for the stage, in a production that faithfully preserved its sardonic edge, seriocomic sensibility, metaphysical hijinks, and madly inventive plot twists, it would run till the end of the century."
— James Morrow, author of The Last Witchfinder
 
“I found the book ‘breathtaking’..., it literally took my breath away as it moved from one reality to another. I really enjoyed it.”
— Rabbi Laura Geller