A darkly witty, deeply affecting, and finely crafted memoir by the Big Bang Theory and Speechless star and comedian, John Ross Bowie.  

From his earliest memories of watching Rhoda with his parents in their tiny Hell’s Kitchen apartment, John knew that he wanted to be an actor. The strange, alternate world of television—where people always cracked the perfect joke, lived in glamorous Upper East Side buildings, and made up immediately after fighting—seemed far better than his own home life, with a mother and father on the brink of divorce and a neighborhood full of crumbling pre-war architecture and not-so-occasional muggings. And yet that other world also seems unattainable. Besides crippling stage fright (which would take him years to overomce) John's father, ever aloof and cynical, has instilled within him the notion that acting is “no job for a man.”

His father would impart that while theater, film, and television should be consumed and even debated, to create was no way to make a living or support a family. Putting aside his acting dreams, John stumbles through his twenties. He tries his hand at teaching and other traditional occupations, but nothing feels nearly as fulfilling as playing with his fleetingly on-the-map punk band, Egghead.

When he and his bandmates break up, John lands a joyless job copywriting for a consulting agency and slips into a dark depression. He loses weight, begins drinking heavily, and his relationships flounder.

 But everything changes when John discovers improv (and anti-depressants). As a part of New York’s now-famous Upright Citizens Brigade, John not only explores his passion for acting and comedy—and begins to envision himself doing so professionally—he also meets his future wife and fellow actor, Jamie Denbo.

No Job for a Man follows the couple as they relocate to Los Angeles and try to make it in the arts, meeting success and failure, wins and losses, despair and hope along the way. Though his father chronically refuses to acknowledge pride in his adult son’s accomplishments, John comes to realize what being a man truly means.

"Bowie writes in a style that is both comfortably earnest and humorous about his time as a college DJ, a high-school English teacher, and leader of his own punk band, Egghead. He also writes candidly of dealing with depression, and it’s clear that by the time he joins the Upright Citizens Brigade, that there is nothing he takes for granted. Bowie’s hard-won success on television is truly only a small part of his story. Like the punk bands Bowie idolized as a teenager, his voice rings true in a crowded genre." - Library Journal

"“A smart, pithy memoir with an earnest emotional arc. The recurring contrast—bleak and grotesque collide with redeeming beauty—keeps Bowie’s free-flowing narrative grounded. Bowie employs a light touch while recounting love and family relationships that spark and fade through choice conversational snippets and anecdotes, culminating in a poignant climactic encounter with his brusque father. No Job For a Man is like a worn-in band T-shirt at a wrap party: sardonic yet soft.”" - Publishers Weekly

"Bowie knows how to set a scene, knows how to hook readers with sensory detail before packing a punch with honest, self-reflective (and occasionally self-depreciating) writing—a page-turner for sure, all delivered with a sardonic wit and peppered with Easter eggs for aging punk nerds like me." - Razorcake