BOOK REVIEW: My Brother Was An Only Child

Helping to keep the book shelves organized at the Faith Center is a dangerous volunteer job for me--at least if you listen to my husband Jim. He has pointed out that it is the most expensive volunteer job that I have ever had. He may be right.

MY BROTHER WAS AN ONLY CHILD by Jack Douglas may prove Jim’s point. I first read the book in 1959 while attending a lecture in college on something or another. I forget. I do remember laughing out loud and causing a bit of a disturbance. So, seeing it again was like meeting an old friend unexpectedly and, of course, I had to take it home with me.

You may need some background on the book, and the author, since it never became a leader on any best seller list.

Jack Douglas was a comedy writer in early television. Among his employers was Jack Parr (to those of you much younger than I, Jack Parr was the host of the Tonight Show back in the 1950’s). Parr has written the Introduction to the book in what might not be the most flattering of introductions. Parr says that while some writers are loaded with honor and integrity, leaving out honor and integrity, he has often seen Douglas loaded; he blames that on the evils of an expense account.

In the book itself, the chapter titles give no help what-so-ever in understanding what will be found inside and sometimes the chapter titles are as funny as the chapters themselves.

For example:

“The Story of Wine or Brown Feet, Why Are You Blue?” or “ On One’s Hand It Is Much Better to Have Fingers Than Toes”, or the chapter titled “ Put the Cobra Back in the Basket, Mother--There’ll Be No Show Tonight”, this chapter is not about mothers or cobras, by the way.

Chapter sixteen is “ Famous Bastards”.  To quote it in its entirety : “(What’s the use --- you all know who you are.)”

The complete book is just silly, but now you have an idea of what made me LOL in my younger days. There have been quite a few nonsense books since 1959, but Jack Douglas was an early pioneer in the field.

P.S. Book Clearance by Command of Husband at end of month. Watch the Gazette for details.