The Insanity Defense: The Complete Prose
Published simultaneously with Mere Anarchy (2007), these 40-plus previously published humorous sketches poke fun at Allen's classic targets: New York intellectuals, death, and Mr. Big—he's God, of course. Projecting personas is Allen's main technique across these stories, many of which contain allusions to the 1970s, when most of them were written. You want Studs Terkel? Allen satirizes his Hard Times in "Fine Times." How about Nazi memoirists? Allen gives you the recollections of Hitler's barber. Latin American revolutionaries were on the march, if somewhat ineffectually, in "Viva Vargas!" And if one's laughs come from satirizing such literary forms as the eulogy, commencement speech, or college course catalog, Allen is your parodist as well. Including mockery of collected works via a faux review of the collected laundry lists of the unjustifiably obscure Metterling, Allen perhaps barbs his own volume, which is the third time many of these pieces have seen publication. Nevertheless, it's a treasury of risibility for the Allen audience. Taylor, GilbertCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved