Attic humour

I'm currently reading, and greatly enjoying, Jay McInerney's The Story of My Life.

It has a brilliant joke in it. The Manhattan-based heroine, who is "beautiful, blunt, world-weary and 20", while at the same time being doesn't-know-she's-born overprivileged, goes to acting classes when she's not too hungover or coked out of her brains. When she or one of her classmates manifestly fails to perform, her tutor will shout "she's in the attic!", while never explaining why.

This goes on for several chapters until the reader is more curious than any of the class seems to be.

And then we find out. A blonde would-be-starlet with zero acting talent had found herself a wealthy sponsor, who then financed plays on the condition that she got to play the leading role. She was consistently dreadful. One play was a dramatisation of the Diary of Anne Frank, and she of course was playing Anne. It was so bad that most of the audience left, and when the Gestapo came banging on the door, someone shouted "she's in the attic!".

I kept myself awake last night I was laughing so hard.

joella