Showing Fat Man on the Left: Four Decades in the Underground by Lionel Rolfe

(California Classics Books paperback, 2003) “What makes Rolfe’s book really sing is his resilience to whatever life throws at him, his obvious enjoyment of the stories he interweaves. . . . He responds to the outrages and indignities he chronicles with persistent wry wit, ironic indulgence, and flashes of absurdist humor. . . . What distinguishes FAT MAN ON THE LEFT is how effortlessly it engages the reader on a boundless sea of reflection.”
–City Paper (Philadelphia)

“Why might a reader pick up this anecdotal memoir of an unusual life? Rolfe has written for several dozen major publications (and been blacklisted out of several dozen more, thanks to his politics). He wrote two books on ‘literary L.A.,’ where he grew up, and has met, interviewed, and / or interacted with dozens of writers, politicians, actors, rock stars, and other notables over the past several decades. In this volume’s sixteen essays, he discusses Yehudi Menuhin, Frank Zappa, the Communist Party, literary L.A., anti-Semitism, health care, animal welfare, the founder of the Emmy awards, the birds he and his ex-wife (a member of Zappa’s entourage) have cared for as pets, Israel and Zionism, and California, ‘home’ for much of his life.”
–Booklist