Ant Farm: And Other Desperate Situations
A contributor toMad, 22-year-old Rich is a Harvard senior, a former president of theHarvard Lampoonand the son ofNew York Timescolumnist Frank Rich. Half of the short humor pieces collected here previously appeared in theHarvard Lampoon, and Rich has taken his college collage and mixed it with new material for a satirical salmagundi that bites back. Since brevity is the soul of wit, the book has 57 varieties of playlets, essays and mirthful monologues, and most are only two pages long. Imaginative premises abound, such asX Fileswith dog characters. In the title piece, ants plot an escape: "We've been digging tunnels ever since we got here. We always end up hitting glass." Since a college-level audience is targeted, older readers might find some references puzzling. In his original proposal to Random House (a portion of which was printed in theNew York Observer), he claimed that the "subject matter—horrible, inescapable doom—is well-suited for a younger audience.... I think kids will be attracted to the book's unpredictability. The tone remains constant throughout, but the topic changes every page with the abruptness of an iPod shuffle." True, these fragments are fun, and some are so abrupt they could have been iPhoned in. Others are as unpredictable as YouTube, as in your face as MySpace (which will both surely be used for online promotions).(Apr. 3)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.