Pal Joey
The Novel and The Libretto and Lyrics
For its 75th anniversary and Frank Sinatra’s centennial: the Jazz Age masterpiece that inspired the iconic Sinatra film and the hit Broadway musical, and featuring the musical’s libretto and lyrics
On the seedy side of Chicago nightlife in the 1930s, Joey Evans is a poor man’s Bing Crosby—a big-talking, small-time nightclub crooner down on his luck but always on the make. In slangy, error-littered letters signed “Pal Joey,” he recounts his exploits with brash nightclub managers, shady business partners, and every pretty girl (“mouse”) he meets. Charismatic yet conniving, Pal Joey is a smooth operator whose bravado and big ideas disguise a far less self-assured soul, caught up in the rags-to-riches dream of the Jazz Age.
Originally serialized in The New…