Chick Lit

I recently finished a book series Mary turned me on to. I've found topical humor books quite hit and miss, and usually more miss. I do have my favorites - P. J. O'Rourke for instance, who I've followed since his National Lampoon days. I've always had a soft spot for Calvin Trillin, especially his Tummy Trilogy series.

I'm not quite ready to enshrine Laurie Notaro among these literary giants, but she does have her moments. All three of her books appear to be based upon columns she wrote for a newspaper in Phoenix, AZ. The first book, The Idiot Girl's Action-Adventure Club primarily revolves around life as a young and eventually not quite so young woman in Phoenix and her adventures. Ms. Notaro is cursed with poor impulse control, remarkable predilections for both booze and cigarettes, and a Catholic Italian mother who's involved in a deeply symbiotic relationship with the QVC network. Overall the stories are hit and miss with some really rising above the others. I might have erred in reading this book out of order, second instead of first.

The second book, Autobiography of a Fat Bride, is the prize of the trio. It's filled with many laugh-out-loud accounts of life after the author meets her husband to be, finds out to her dismay that he's almost perfect, at least in contrast to all the other dregs of humanity that she's dated prior to him. This triggers an understandable panic reaction as she realizes that "He Is The One," and she has to shape up long enough to ensnare him. Which she does and hence the title. Married life opens up a whole new series of crises and stupid human behavioral traits that were much more enjoyable to read about than they were to experience, I'm sure.

The third book, I Love Everybody (and Other Atrocious Lies), falls solidly in between the second and first book. It again has some wonderfully laughable moments but overall the tone is pretty uneven. Still, the scene where she berates a woman wearing an oxygen tank for walking too slow has to be one of the classics.