Coyote V. Acme - Softcover

Frazier, Ian

3.5

463 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0374524912 ISBN 13: 9780374524913

Publisher: Noonday Pr, 1997

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Offers a collection of essays exploring such odd details of American popular culture as the career of cartoon character Wile E. Coyote

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Review:

Ian Frazier, our champ in the nearly empty field of "Humorist, Brainy Division," offers up another collection of short pieces. Though not quite the equal of 1986's splendid Dating Your Mom, Coyote V. ACME still leaves almost any other funny book far, far behind. There are occasionally empty sections, but Coyote V. ACME hits more than it misses.

Frazier's talent is like that of a master safecracker: he never leaves any fingerprints. He recreates the tone and tics of a commonplace document--a letter from a bank President, or a legal brief--but ever so slyly lets flickers of absurdity emerge and build. Here's evidence of his style, from the title piece:
"In addition to reducing all Mr. Coyote's careful preparations to naught, the premature detonation of Defendant's product resulted in the following disfigurements to Mr. Coyote:
1. Severe singeing of the hair on the head, neck, and muzzle.
2. Sooty discoloration.
3. Fracture of the left ear at the stem, causing the ear to dangle in the aftershock with a creaking noise."

As with most written humor, the closer you pay attention, the more Frazier's pieces yield. So settle in, and read Coyote V. ACME carefully--you won't be disappointed.

About the Author:

Ian Frazier is the author of Great Plains, The Fish's Eye, On the Rez, Family, and Travels in Siberia, as well as Dating Your Mom, Lamentations of the Father, and The Cursing Mommy's Book of Days. A frequent contributor to The New Yorker, he lives in Montclair, New Jersey.

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