All I'd wanted for as long as I could remember was a woman to love, a soulmate to live with in contentment for the rest of my days: friend, lover, companion, mother to our children. Time was running out: I was getting old. Next year I would be eighteen. Barry Goldman is a sensitive boy. He's being primed to run the family business but has discovered a talent for making audiences laugh at his silly poems. At last, he has found something that might make him attractive to girls - in particular, Harriet Fink - but there's not much call for delicate, earnest poets in the 1970s comedy world of hot-panted dolly birds and battle-axe mothers-in-law. Then one night he sees Kris Dean on stage and understands that the world of comedy is about to change forever. Stand Up, Barry Goldman - like Elena Ferrante, but with jokes - is the debut novel of Dave Cohen, stand-up comedian and writer best known as the creator of dozens of songs for multi-BAFTA winning hit TV show Horrible Histories, and less well known as lead singer in the world's first Jewish heavy metal band, Guns'n'Moses