(Reviewed by Pat Luboff)
I swear I am going to die laughing if I have enough wits about me as I breathe my last to remember one particular sentence in this book! I’m not going to tell you which one, because yours may be a different one, but amid all the many hilarious sentences, I guarantee you will find that one thing to laugh at as you expire!
I usually read myself to sleep at night with my husband gently snoring beside me. When I first started reading this book, I had to remove myself to the bathroom because I was laughing so loud I was afraid I would wake him up. As I got used to Fried’s vision of the world, which is like looking through a Kaleidoscope that twists everything into a reflection from a funhouse mirror, I was able to keep the laughing to a quiet giggle, and even to just grin without making a sound. This went on from cover to cover…
Maybe it is because I am a Baby Boomer, too, that he struck so sharply on my funny bone. But, no, I’m thinking anyone would get a kick out of Fried’s memories of growing up in a small town in the New York State Catskills in the 1950s. He captures the politics of childhood perfectly; the drama of anticipating a possible “snow day,” which promised deliverance from the horror of being doomed to terminal boredom in school. I came to love his Grandpa Jake who has a psychotic hatred of rats but thinks it’s OK for an 8-year old to drive a car until Dennis destroys the garage door. As the boy matures, he tries to come to terms with his failed efforts at peaceful coexistence with inanimate objects. When he gets a job as a test counter for the Regents of New York State (ah, yes, I remember those tests from school) he explains the purpose of the Regents: to ensure that “ignorance and illiteracy are evenly distributed” in the state.
If you need a good laugh, you need to read this book!
