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. Coming June 4, 2024 from St. Martin’s Press

praise for miss may does not exist

“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

“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

“Journalist Courogen delivers a vibrant biography of filmmaker Elaine May … and captures her larger-than-life spirit in lithe prose. … This is a gem.” – Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)