Virtual Memories Show 674:
Josh Alan Friedman
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“All of my best friends were sent away to reform school. I kept the letters they sent me, and they’re in the book.”
Pull up a chair, enjoy a kasha varnishke, and listen to me and Josh Alan Friedman talk about his kaleidoscopic novel, ALL ROADS LEAD TO GREAT NECK (Wyatt Doyle Books/New Texture)! We talk about the momentous years he spent in Great Neck as a kid and why he set his novel in 1970, the ne’er-do-wells and drug addicts he knew (and emulated) in school, how Great Neck has changed since his “glory days,” and the larger-than-life Yiddishkeit ghost who haunts the novel. We get into how he managed to weave Irving Berlin, Floyd Patterson, and Leslie West into the story, how his wife got him to finish the book by putting up post-it notes in their kitchen about each chapter, and how he reconstructed 1970 Great Neck from his collection of the notes girls used to pass in schools and the letters his friends sent him from reform school. We also discuss life after losing his dad, Bruce Jay Friedman, in 2020, how he used to take his 14-year-old pals to see showings of Bruce Jay’s play Steambath so they could catch the nude scene, how it felt to see pieces of his childhood transformed in his dad’s stories (incl. a visit to Las Vegas), what’s left of the New York of his heyday and why he misses Joe Franklin, the play he’s writing about his chauffeur days, his retirement from his lifelong guitar career after a carpal tunnel diagnosis, and more. Give it a listen! And go read ALL ROADS LEAD TO GREAT NECK!
“My father was an anchor of my life. I never laughed with anyone the way I laughed with my father. All the rerefence points that we had, it’s a big gap that he’s not there.”
“Mott Street in Chinatown is still wonderful. It’s still my New York.”
“We only have our own experiences to draw on.”
Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!
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About our Guest
Writer-guitarist Josh Alan Friedman was born in New York City in 1956. By 1987, he’d had enough and followed his wife to Texas, a year after he published Tales of Times Square.
Josh’s 2026 novel, All Roads Lead to Great Neck, is based on a doomed adolescent hippie Josh knew as a teenager. His autobiographical novel, Black Cracker, tells the saga of his childhood being the only white boy at Long Island’s last segregated school. Before that, he published, Tell the Truth Until They Bleed, a wrenching collection of music profiles, When Sex Was Dirty, a follow-up to Tales of Times Square, and I, Goldstein: My Screwed Life (with Al Goldstein). He co-edited Now Dig This: The Unspeakable Writings of Terry Southern, with Nile Southern.
Josh set off satirical fires as writer half of the Friedman Bros, the most feared cartooning duo of the late ’70s and ’80s, along with his brother, Drew Friedman. Anthologies include Warts and All and Any Similarity to Persons Living or Dead is Purely Coincidental.
On the music front, as “Josh Alan,” he barnstormed the state of Texas for 30 years, rocking arenas with his Guild D-40. He copped three Dallas Observer Music Awards for Best Acoustic Act, and released six albums: Famous & Poor, The Worst!, Blacks ‘n’ Jews, Josh Alan Band, Sixty Goddammit, and his 2025 tour de force, Acoustic Instrumentals.
Follow Josh on Instagram and Facebook.
Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at the Carnegie Diner on a pair of Shure Beta 58A microphones feeding into a Zoom PodTrak P4 digital recorder & interface. I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Zoom PodTrak P4. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photos of Josh by someone else, except for the cigar one of us; that’s by me. It’s on my instagram.