Bruce Von Stiers

McFarland & Company has a whole bunch of books on the entertainment industry, mainly on actors and folks in the movies. They have others that deal with killers and rock bands. One of their latest titles is in a slightly different vein. It is about domestic humor writers. The title of the book is Merry Wives and Others. It was written by Penelope Fritzer and Bartholomew Bland. The book is subtitled A History of Domestic Humor Writing.

There are fourteen chapters in the book, along with a Preface, a Bibliography and an Index. There a total of 262 pages in the book.

The Preface tells you what the book is going to be about. It tells you which type of writer would be included in this book and the type that would not. We are told that, although this book is primarily about women writers, men are included as well.

The first chapter is Social Context. It goes into what the various humorists have done in the way of making us laugh at our everyday lives. The authors write about people like Martha Stewart who has been parodied quite a bit. They remind us of tomes like Is Martha Stewart Living? as an example of this type of humor.

Chapter 2 is Laying the Foundation. Here we get to meet the original pioneers of domestic humor. There is Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, who later went on to write The Yearling. We also find out a lot about Betty McDonald. Her book, The Egg and I, was made into a movie and spun off a series of other films based on characters in it.

The third chapter is Midcentury Merry Wives. Here there is a bit about the writer of Please Don’t Eat The Daisies, Jean Kerr. We learn about Peg Bracken who wrote such classics as The I Hate to Cook Book and I Didn’t Come Here to Argue

Chapter 4 is Queen Erma and Her Early Contemporaries. This chapter is mainly about Erma Bombeck and how she paved the way for later writers. Some of the other writers included in this chapter are Judith Viorst and Nancy Stahl. The next chapter deals with some of the writers who came a little later. Writers like Alice Kahn, Sylvia Harney and Leslie Tonner are covered here.

Chapter 6 profiles a few of the “Current Crop” of domestic humor writers. We find that the authors describe Mary Kay Blakely as a “divorced feminist” who would only let her sons hold lighted candles at a peace march. Then there is Elaine Viets whose books include one titled How to Commit Monogamy. Throughout the book there are photos of the writers that are being profiled.

The seventh and eighth chapters deal with men who have written in the domestic humor vein. There is E.B. White of Charlotte’s Web fame. Then there is my favorite humor poet, Ogden Nash. I used to have one of his books and would read it to my friends some times to make them think I was witty. Alas, the book got ruined in a flooded basement and I went on to other things. Modern writers included in these chapters include Dave Barry and Bill Cosby, both of whom I consider hilarious.

Other chapters feature writers like Lewis Grizzard, Karen Finley and David Owen. There is a chapter on Canadian writers that profiles Richard Scrimger and Phil Callaway. A chapter on British writers includes Elisabeth Luard and Jilly Cooper. The last chapter kind of wraps things up and gives some final comments on the domestic humor genre.

I really had only one complaint about the book, but it’s a pretty major one. Chapter 10 is called The Christian Contingent. This chapter profiles Christian humorists like Patsy Clairmont, Janet Lanese and Barbara Johnson. Some of the initial comments in the chapter include “it is a bit difficult to see just why some writers feel so compelled to keep harping….rather than just representing their religion as a natural part of life.” Instead of positive profiles on these writers, the authors of this book seem to drop tact altogether and make snide remarks about them. They condemn Barbara Johnson’s treatment of her gay son and knock Martha Bolton as she “hauls in the religious message” at the end of a story. I’m not too sure why the authors chose to attack the Christian writers like that. Is it possible that one or both of them had bad faith experiences and chose to bash Christian domestic humor writers? Or is possible that they don’t fully understand that these writers put forth their works as a form of ministry? Whatever the reasons for Fritzer and Bland’s tirade against the writers in this chapter, I was taken aback and offended.

I liked Merry Wives and Others with the exception of the chapter on Christian writers. It provides a good history of domestic humor writings and the people behind them.

For more information about this, or other McFarland & Company titles, visit their web site at www.McFarlandpub.com.