From the Archive: Bruce Jay Friedman’s Story, “Business is Business”
By Alex Wexelman
American author Bruce Jay Friedman in 1978
Whether author Bruce Jay Friedman invented the term “black humor” is up for debate, though what isn’t is the fact that he helped popularize the style of wry, dark, and subtle comedy that he and his cohort—Thomas Pynchon, Donald Barthelme, Kurt Vonnegut, et al.—proffered. Friedman was never situated firmly within this group, despite editing the anthology that popularized the sub-genre’s name, and he paled in the shadow of Roth, Malamud, and Bellow, becoming a minor, somewhat forgotten member of Jewish American Author club.
In a 2000 New York Times profile on Friedman, writer Rick Martin wrote, “People forget. They think of the big names of a certain age and sensibility, they don't necessarily think Bruce Jay Friedman. That might change.” It didn’t. He’s still a cult figure, and though you may not recognize his name, it’s very possible you’re familiar with his work. Most popular among the screenplays he co-wrote is the 1984 Tom Hanks Daryl Hannah flick Splash, a classic romantic comedy fish-out-of-water tale for which he was nominated for the Academy Award. If you haven’t seen it, it holds it pretty well. At the time, it helped popularize the name girl’s name Madison. Prior to the film, it was simply a surname. But anyway, for this installment of archive pondering, I have chosen the story “Business is Business,” published by the Journal the same year as the aforementioned film. (Fun fact: Friedman applied to, and was rejected, from Columbia University for undergraduate studies; I, personally, didn’t even try.)
The short story, like many of Friedman’s, concerns a working-class Jewish family and the intra-family struggles for success and financial freedom in America. Told from the point-of-view of the son, the story revolves around Henry and Edna, a couple, mostly referred to as “my father” and “my mother” by the unnamed narrator, who are at dire-straits over business decisions that could make or break the family. The father works for a man named Schreever for whom he shows much deference. The driving conflict of the story is that the mother wants the father to take on more responsibility at work, but he’s constantly undermining himself because of the reverence he has for his boss, an old childhood chum. Eventually, Schreever falls unwell and then that ratchets up the tension between husband and wife, leaving son in the middle to deal with it all. In the end, things don’t quite work out how one would hope, but Friedman manages to end things on a sanguine note. It’s a fun slice-of-life from a bygone era. But despite the particulars feeling old-timey, the themes of class and family conflict feel as new as the latest iPhone update. Enjoy.
