As a trailblazing comedian writer, director, and actor, Elaine May has left her distinct fingerprints all over the latter half of 20th century pop culture. As part of the legendary comedy team Nichols and May, she revolutionized improv sketch comedy before striking out on her own to make history as the third woman to be inducted into the Directors Guild of America when she wrote, directed, and starred in 1971’s A New Leaf. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, May made a name for herself both as Hollywood’s top screenwriter and script doctor—working on films like Heaven Can Wait, Reds, and Tootsie—and as one of only few women directing within the studio system, with films like The Heartbreak Kid and Mikey and Nicky. After making the legendary box office bomb Ishtar, May never directed a feature again, though she continued to write films like The Birdcage and Primary Colors. In 2018, she returned to Broadway, where she won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Play for The Waverly Gallery.
Besides her considerable talent, May is well known for her reclusiveness. In the liner notes for Mike Nichols and Elaine May’s first comedy LP in 1958, her bio is a single terse sentence: “Miss May does not exist.” But saying you don’t exist doesn’t mean you don’t exist; fighting to make herself invisible, working behind the scenes or without credit, just made it easier for others to craft—and twist—her narrative in her absence instead. Until now.
Carrie Courogen has uncovered the Elaine May who does exist. Conducting countless interviews, she has filled in the blanks May has forcibly kept blank for years, creating a riveting portrait of a creative powerhouse, a lost era of Hollywood, and the way women were mistreated and held back within it. Miss May Does Not Exist is a remarkable love story about a prickly genius who was never easy to work with, not always easy to love, and frequently punished for those things—despite revolutionizing the way we think about comedy, acting, and what a film or play can be.
praise for miss may does not exist
additional interviews and press for miss may can be found here
Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Awards 2024 (John Leonard Prize for Best First Book)
“Casual, sympathetic and compulsively readable…Smart, but offbeat, [Courogen]’s the Elaine May of biographers.”
“A minor miracle. Courogen has produced the definitive book about May’s life and career…a fascinating, three-dimensional portrait of a brilliant, complicated artist.”
“A deeply researched, psychologically astute new biography of May by Carrie Courogen…The book is written with a brash literary verve that feels authentic to its subject, it does justice both to May’s mighty artistry and to the complex fabric of her life, linking them persuasively while resisting facile correlations between her personal concerns and her blazing inspirations.”
– Richard Brody, The New Yorker
“Courogen] just has a way. She writes like a millennial—in a good way. She’s very approachable and very in your face and she’ll curse. And it just feels like a new form, just someone reinventing what’s happening out there…I recommend it highly.”
“A vivid tribute to an overlooked talent.”
“Carrie Courogen chronicles everything from May’s start as a child performer in Yiddish theaters to her affinity for eating apples, core and all, in this comprehensive biography.”
“Splendid…’Miss May Does Not Exist’ is revelatory scholarship that gives full measure to this artist whose outlier creative life Courogen captures through original research, archival material and scores of interviews.”
“Well-researched and entertaining…Courogen’s biography helps correct the record too, making May’s genius more tangible for her longtime fans, and offering incontrovertible proof for those yet to discover her that Miss May — and her remarkable talent — do indeed exist.”
“Courogen treats May with the respect her talent deserves without overselling the ‘Hollywood done her wrong’ angle or falling into too much rapture…[and] sprinkles her narrative with gems from the many production assistants, crew members, and collaborators with whom May worked—enough backstage chatter to make the book feel of a piece with May’s comedy.”
“Essential.”
– New York Magazine , highbrow and brilliant on the Approval Matrix
“Courogen writes in a breezy style…her admiration for Elaine May, a woman who endured on her own terms in a man’s world, is always present.”
“Delightful to read…a godsend promising a new era of appreciation for [May’s] idiosyncratic genius.”
– Jacobin
“Miss May Does Not Exist is filled with great show-biz drama, but what sets it apart is the way it pierces the myths to reveal a troubled, devoted comedic genius who hasn’t often gotten the credit she deserves.”
“Courogen’s skillful research and numerous fresh interviews reveal the woman behind the legend in this whip-smart and funny biography that produces a fully realized portrait of a mysterious film genius.”
“Brilliantly researched…puts the elusive May’s creative struggles firmly in the context of how women confronted numerous obstacles within the entertainment industry.”
“An engaging study of enigmatic Hollywood figure Elaine May…[that] adds to the growing chorus restoring May to her rightful place as a — however reluctant — Hollywood icon.”
“Illuminating. Impressively engaging and thorough. She read everything, including things you wouldn’t expect, and manages to jigsaw these pieces into a compelling portrait of a woman who, after 70 years in film and theater, transformed from a rebel into an icon.”
– Cineaste
“A fascinating, three-dimensional portrait of a brilliant, complicated artist who has somehow stuck to her guns and gotten away with it…. Fortunately, Courogen’s biography reminds us that greatness persists whether or not it’s appropriately celebrated.”
– The Week
“Courogen, despite her palpable fandom and admiration, writes at a critical distance that, in its own way, makes the compelling case for May that mirrors the artist’s own approach: let the work speak for itself.”
– Paste
“Miss May Does Not Exist is fascinating and admiring of someone who more than deserves our praise.”
– Pajiba
“Meticulously researched…replete with vivid anecdotes, Courogen’s book provides ample evidence to bolster [May’s] myth, as well as contributing to the effort to reframe its political significance.”
“A spritely read and thoroughly researched…As a biography, it may not complete the entire puzzle, but it gathers most of the pieces; by the end, May seems more real and more brilliant than when those pieces were scattered all over the floor… The context Courogen brings to each project is essential to understanding why the end result might or might not have worked. Maybe all this is to say that it goes beyond May herself—maybe, after reading the book, Miss May does not exist as we previously imagined her to, but rather as something much more complicated and indefinable.”
Elaine May finally receives her due credit as a pioneer for women in entertainment.”
“Riveting.”
– Tertulia, The Best Biographies and Memoirs of 2024 So Far
“Journalist Courogen delivers a vibrant biography of filmmaker Elaine May … and captures her larger-than-life spirit in lithe prose. … This is a gem.”
– Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Whip-smart and funny…a fully realized portrait of a mysterious film genius.”
– Library Journal (starred review)
“A captivating look at an influential, one-of-a-kind talent in the performing arts pantheon whom comedy, theater, and film fans should know about.”
– Booklist
“An enthralling account of the life of Elaine May, with wonderful stories of the extraordinary Mike Nichols, their meeting, their early days, their successes, and their subsequent inevitable interactions in life and show business.”
“It’s so good. I’m so into it…When I’ve gone down rabbit holes of Elaine May, there’s a lot of different things that I’m like ‘what is this?’ Carrie Courogen does a great job of distilling and getting as much of the truth as you can possibly get. It’s really fun.”
“Provoking, page turning, [and] divinely personal.”
“[Miss May Does Not Exist] is not only the sort of book I want to read more of, but damn, I’m jealous of how Courogen did it…Not having May involved only made Courogen work harder and play around with the idea of what a biography on a living subject could be. Because of that, Miss May Does Not Exist has more energy per page than entire biographies can muster.”
– Jason Diamond, journalist, editor, and author (Kaplan’s Plot)
“May’s admirers will welcome a long-overdue survey of her career and a tribute to the comic genius.”
– Shelf Awareness (starred review)
“May is perfectly presented by Courogen…Miss May rightfully and finally puts the spotlight on this underrated comic of stage and screen. Accessible and persuasive…Courogen makes a convincing case for adding May to the gallery of greats, a brilliant independent artist (storyteller) but unsung cog in the entertainment machine.”
“Courogen has done stunning research, despite the many obstacles in her path, bringing the elusive director, comedian and actress fully into focus…I greatly recommend it.”
“Miss May Does Not Exist is the book that fans of May have been wanting for, well, the entire career of the comedian, screenwriter, playwright, and filmmaker. The world, it seems, was waiting for Carrie Courogen…[who] writes with the wit, intellect, and insight her subject deserves. Miss May Does Not Exist is brilliant, indispensable, and utterly extraordinary.”
“Carrie Courogen has written the biography Elaine May deserves. Shimmering with insight and grounded in deep research, this book is as iconoclastic, engaging, and challenging as Miss May herself.”
– Claire Dederer, author of Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma
“Carrie Courogen has achieved the impossible: she has written the first (and very likely last) full-scale biography of Elaine May, the most beguiling, infuriating, thrilling, comedy genius―and let’s not use that word casually―of the twentieth century, and she has done it splendidly, with admiration, welcome outrage, and scrupulous attention to detail. We all of us who have loved and wondered at this creature Elaine May owe Courogen our thanks, money, food—whatever she wants—for having written this book.”
– Sam Wasson, NYT Bestselling Author of The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood and Fosse
“In Miss May Does Not Exist, Carrie Courogen pulls off quite the feat; she manages to capture, with nuance and wit, the life of a woman who is as hilarious as she is complex, as sparkling as she is serious, as ambitious as she is aloof. Courogen makes an undeniable case for May’s permanent place in the cinematic canon as a major director and singular comedic talent; after reading this book, I will be saying ‘justice for Ishtar!’ to anyone who will listen.”
– Rachel Syme, Staff Writer, The New Yorker
“What an upbeat, positive and perceptive take Carrie Courogen has given us on one of our funniest and most interesting film artists, the extraordinarily elusive and talented Elaine May! Her research has followed her subject’s “factual fiction” crumb-trails to hell and back with great love to elucidate on May’s truth, even if it means she’s going to get an excoriating tongue-lashing for giving a younger generation a story it needs to know if they want to be half as smart as May. We get the feeling that Carrie Courogen understands Elaine May really well. Their intelligence has no gender.”
– Tina Weymouth, Tom Tom Club and Talking Heads