Deadpan

Richard Walter’s Deadpan opens like a stage trapdoor dropping out from under its protagonist. Dwight Bridges is a Buick salesman one moment, then suddenly a tuxedoed performer called “Richie” the next, staring into a dressing-room mirror framed by hot bulbs and wondering why he has hair again. Outside the door, a band is already cueing his entrance, a crowd is waiting, and various people seem alarmed that he is not ready to be the Jewish comic they believe him to be. It is a strong, instantly cinematic setup, and Walter knows how to milk the panic for momentum.

The book’s main engine is comic disorientation. Walter writes the opening as a manic backstage farce, all fanfares, shouted instructions, mistaken identity, and rising humiliation. That energy works. So does the visual contrast between Dwight’s ordinary dealership life and this bright, theatrical, cocaine-adjacent showbiz nightmare. The satire is clearly aimed at bigotry, especially the casual antisemitism Dwight carries with him into this new reality, and the novel’s weirdest trick is forcing him to inhabit the identity he is least prepared to understand. That gives the premise bite. The risk is tone. Walter is broad on purpose, and the language can be abrasive, stylized, and deliberately offensive in ways that will not land for everyone. Readers wanting subtlety may bounce off it. But readers open to a louder, stranger comic ride will find a novel that commits fully to its premise. Deadpan feels built for performance, confusion, and collision, which makes it a natural fit for Los Angeles readers who like their satire fast, visual, and unapologetically theatrical.