That Man is Here Again: The Adventures of a Hollywood Agent

New York: Random House. Very Good in Poor dj. (c.1946). First Edition. Hardcover. (price-clipped) [moderate wear to book, top corners bumped; jacket is missing large pieces at several corners, and about 1/4 of the top of the rear panel (front panel illustration is mostly unaffected)]. 18 humorous stories of Hollywood agent "Benny Greenspan," most of which had originally appeared in The New Yorker, and an introduction which discusses the place of the agent in the movie business, with particular reference to screenwriters. (The author had done a stint in Hollywood himself, and of course was also the one-time husband of Lillian Hellman.) Each story includes its own brief "afterword," in which the author relates the events of the story to some bit of show-business lore, or to his own experience. The stories are largely told in Benny's voice, and the titles alone are worth the price of admission: "It's Enough to Curl Your Blood"; "I'm the Dog Evveybody Is Talkin' It Shouldn't Happen To"; "I Got Hard Luck Hooverin' Over Me Like a Flock of Vouchers"; etc. .