From the Publisher
The title essay of Coyote v. Acme, Ian Frazier's second collection of humorous essays, imagines the opening statement of an attorney representing cartoon character Wile E. Coyote in a product liability suit against the Acme Company, supplier of unpredictable rocket sleds and faulty spring-powered shoes. Other essays are about Bob Hope's golfing career, a commencement address given by a Satanist college president, a suburban short story attacked by the Germans, the problem of issues versus non-issues, and the theories of revolutionary stand-up comedy from Comrade Stalin. From first to last, this is Frazier at his hilarious best.
Publishers Weekly
A collection of essays, which PW called "awfully good, smart and wicked at the same time," from the New Yorker humorist. (May)
Library Journal
Frazier's first collection of humor since Dating Your Mom (LJ 1/86) contains 22 pieces spoofing a wide range of subjects from Wylie Coyote to Joseph Stalin, from aggressive New Yorkers to the all-powerful Internal Revenue Service. The problem is that Frazier's routines too often target trivial issues, e.g., golf, television shows, and advice columns. Moreover, they aren't funnyat least not to one whose sense of humor was honed on Mad magazine, Saturday Night Live, and Fawlty Towers. Reading one of these stories in a magazine at the dentist's office might prove distracting; reading several could eliminate the need for Novocain. Of course, when it comes to a sense of humor, people vary greatly. If you dissolve into a paroxysm of uncontrollable laughter at the sight of a New Yorker cartoon, this book may be for you. For general collections.William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY
Kirkus Reviews
Fresh from a memoir cum family history (Family, 1994), the author returns to the antic form with which he first made his name. Here is a gathering of his funny stuff culled from the pages of the Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker and, no kidding, Army Man.
Though the collection is not seamless, the 22 short sketches harbor some truly loony stuff. Founded on vaguely recognizable facets of modern American life, Frazier's pieces use to wonderful effect the babble of banking and finance, the cant of showbiz, and with particular style, the language of literature. There's an alternate view of Wuthering Heights (in which "Cathy died, but not seriously"). There's a short story overflowing with meaningful relationships. ("Now that I am grown, with a husband and a wife and children of my own . . ." muses the narrator). There's Boswell's life of Don Johnson. And there is a wickedly accurate parody of Bob Hope's golfing reminiscences. Frazier has perfect pitch for language, whether it's litigious, as in the case of Wile E. Coyote v. Acme Company or instructive, as in the tax directive wherein some actual IRS wordage is embedded. Theatrical shtick isn't scanted, either, in a Studs Turkel-ish interview in which a fatuous Comrade Stalin is recalled expounding on the art and practice of stand-up comedy. In his S.J. Perelmanic vein, Frazier is likely to do a send-up on a news item of signal silliness. Though not all the little pieces are of equal quality (one riff that doesn't quite work is a commencement lecture from a scholar possessed by demons), they are all worth reading.
And in the time it takes to read the average book just once, this text can be read over and over again—which is not such a bad idea.
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