When The Atlantic Monthly celebrated its 150th anniversary by publishing excerpts from the best writing ever to appear in the magazine, in the category of the humorous essay it chose only four pieces--one by Mark Twain, one by James Thurber, one by Kurt Vonnegut, and Ian Frazier's 1997 essay Lamentations of the Father. The title piece of this new collection has had an ongoing life in anthologies, in radio performances, in audio recordings, on the Internet, and in photocopies held by hamburger magnets on the doors of people's refrigerators. The august company in which The Atlantic put Frazier gives an idea of where on the literary spectrum his humorous pieces lie. Frazier's work is funny and elegant and poetic and of the highest literary aspiration, all at the same time. More serious than a gag writer, funnier than most essayists of equal accomplishment, Frazier is of a classical originality. This collection, a companion to his previous humor collections Dating Your Mom (1985) and Coyote v. Acme (1996), contains thirty-three pieces gathered from the last thirteen years. Past winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor; author of the nonfiction bestsellers Great Plains, Family, and On the Rez; contributor to The New Yorker, Outside, and other magazines, Frazier is the greatest writer of our (or indeed of any) age. Ian Frazier is the author of seven works of nonfiction including Great Plains, Family, and On the Rez. He has also published two collections of humor writing and is a past winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor. A frequent contributor to The New Yorker, he has also written for Outside and other magazines. He lives in Montclair, New Jersey. When The Atlantic Monthly celebrated its 150th anniversary by publishing excerpts from the best writing ever to appear in the magazine, it chose only four pieces in the category of the humorous essay--one by Mark Twain, one by James Thurber, one by Kurt Vonnegut, and Ian Frazier's 1997 essay Lamentations of the Father. The title piece of this new collection has had an ongoing life in anthologies, in radio performances, in audio recordings, on the internet, and in photocopies on refrigerator doors.

The august company in which The Atlantic placed Frazier gives an idea of where his humorous pieces lie on the literary spectrum. Frazier's work is funny and elegant and poetic and of the highest literary aspiration, all at the same time. More serious than a gag writer, funnier than other essayists of equal accomplishment, Frazier is of a classical originality. This collection, a companion to his previous humor collections Dating Your Mom and Coyote v. Acme, contains thirty-three pieces gathered from the last thirteen years.

Frazier's] dry humor is used to great effect, whether he's recounting his duty as household dishwasher or noting details about the FBI poster for Osama bin Laden at the post office . . . Other pieces are based on recognizable current events and pop-culture icons, such as 'My Wife Liz, ' full of details about the author's fictional marriage to Elizabeth Taylor . . . Most of the 30-odd pieces are only a few pages long, offering up perfect snapshots of absurdities and imagined vignettes. The narrator of 'Caught'--the coyote who was trapped for two days in Central Park in 2006--takes a Holden Caulfield approach to his new-found recognition . . . Frazier is a masterful comedian whose seeming lack of overconfidence not only endears him to readers but also invites identification, particularly in humiliating situations.--Kirkus Reviews Although our era is awash in comedy, literary humor has dwindled in recent years . . . Indeed, if there were a federal registry for endangered literary genres, humor surely would be on it, a prose equivalent of the black-footed ferret. All of this makes Ian Frazier a kind of rara avis and his new collection of essays, Lamentations of the Father, is as welcome as another sighting of the ivory-billed woodpecker. As a longtime staff writer for the New Yorker, the author has enjoyed the protection of what amounts to one of literary humor's protected habitats, and he has made the most of it. No one writing in this genre today hits the mark with anything like Frazier's frequency. The measure of his success is the number of pieces you'll want to read aloud to others--partly to share the pleasure, partly to explain why you've been making all those strangling noises. What distinguishes literary humor from other forms of contemporary comedy is that, in most instances, you can share it with those around you, even if one of the listeners can't get into a PG-13 film on his own . . . One of the many pleasures of Frazier's humorous sensibility is that it doesn't deny the distinction between high and low, but integrates the two as equally real and worthy of consideration. The title 'The New Poetry, ' for example, could be ripped from the hand-cut pages of any one of several dozen magazines. In Frazier's hands, it becomes the occasion for considering a Thomas Hardy you won't quite recognize and an Ezra Pound whose pretensions you will, because he 'had a Parisian jeweler make a solid-gold laurel wreath for him, which he wore about his temples when he attended award ceremonies of the French Academy.' If the author's account of his 'new poets' and their art seems curiously like an entertainment page piece on a stable of rap musicians, well . . . there's this on the Wystan Hugh you never knew: 'In his personal life, Auden was Peck's Bad Boy, in and out of trouble with the law. His sad gentle eyes and seamed face gave no indication of the trouble in store if you messed with him. His mother, who supported him throughout his career, always said that the literary rivals Auden shot would have done the same to him if he had given them the chance. Certainly, there was some truth in that . . . When a dispute over the acceptability of an off-rhyme led to gunplay, Au

"Accomplished social satirist Frazier's latest collection reminds us why the novelist and essayist is one of America's funniest living writers. The much-quoted title piece, originally published in the Atlantic Monthly, gives voice to every parent's battle with table manners, bath time and various 'laws, statutes and ordinances' concerning biting (don't), sand (not edible) and pets (not to be taped). Equally entertaining are Frazier's self-declared role as spokesman for crows, complete with slogan ('Crows: We Want to Be Your Only Bird™') and his mock expos on the truth behind history's most famous phrases. Caesar's 'I came, I saw, I conquered' is, according to Frazier, simply an early example of mankind's obsession with the sound bite, a snappier version of: 'I came, I saw, I conquered, I had a snack, I took a bath, and I went to bed, because I was exhausted.' A treat for Frazier fanatics and new readers alike, this compilation from the past 13 years has nary a misstep and begs to be read in one sitting. Researchers, Frazier says, have determined that life is too hard. But it's easier with Frazier at the helm." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

More serious than a "gag" writer and funnier than most essayists, Frazier has a classical originality. This collection, a companion to his previous humor collections "Dating Your Mom" and "Coyote v. Acme," contains 33 pieces gathered from the last 13 years.

When The Atlantic Monthly celebrated its 150th anniversary by publishing excerpts from the best writing ever to appear in the magazine, in the category of the humorous essay it chose only four pieces—one by Mark Twain, one by James Thurber, one by Kurt Vonnegut, and Ian Frazier’s 1997 essay “Lamentations of the Father.” The title piece of this new collection has had an ongoing life in anthologies, in radio performances, in audio recordings, on the Internet, and in photocopies held by hamburger magnets on the doors of people’s refrigerators. The august company in which The Atlantic put Frazier gives an idea of where on the literary spectrum his humorous pieces lie. Frazier’s work is funny and elegant and poetic and of the highest literary aspiration, all at the same time. More serious than a “gag” writer, funnier than most essayists of equal accomplishment, Frazier is of a classical originality. This collection, a companion to his previous humor collections Dating Your Mom (1985) and Coyote v. Acme (1996), contains thirty-three pieces gathered from the last thirteen years. Past winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor; author of the nonfiction bestsellers Great Plains, Family, and On the Rez; contributor to The New Yorker, Outside, and other magazines, Frazier is the greatest writer of our (or indeed of any) age.

'Kisses All AroundLaws Concerning Food and Drink; Household Principles;Lamentations of the FatherTomorrow's BirdLittle House off the HighwayTh-Th-That's Not All, FolksMy Wife LizWalking TourThe American PersuasionTechno-ThrillerThe Cursing Mommy CookbookVeni, Vidi, Vici, Etc.KidproofThe Not-So-Public EnemyUnbowedThe New PoetryResearchers SayWarmer, WarmerA Cursing Mommy ChristmasCome Back, Suckers!From Across the PondEverlastingClass NotesBack in the U.S.A.He, the MurdererNo.  Please, NoIf Memory Doesn't ServeKid CourtHere to Tell YouChinese ArthimeticSquare OnePensées d'AutomneCaughtThis EnoughDownpagingHow to Operate the Shower CurtainWhat I Am'