The People vs. Laura Kipnis

Midway through Men: Notes from an Ongoing Investigation, Laura Kipnis distinguishes between two different kinds of humor. She’s been reading a novel by the comic writer Patricia Marx, a parody of a former lover who happens to be Kipnis’s ex too. The ex in question is a sleazy romantic type, a graduate student turned shrink who likes to call his lovers “my peach” and cheats on them with his patients. He specializes in “ego studies.” But the female protagonist is no less pathetic.