false 479646 3 In <I>Derby Dugan's Depression Funnies</I>, Al Bready ghostwrites a popular comic strip and struggles to get along with his boss and mentor, Walter Geebus. Set in 1930s New York, the novel is populated with characters who seem to have stepped straight out of a Damon Runyon story. While Mysterious Jones roams the city in a black mask, Marty Planet runs the Mafia, and an ambitious young cartoonist's assistant named Frank Sweeney rots in jail for lacing his boss's coffee with arsenic. He was trying to poison his way to a promotion, but it didn't work. Al Bready caught him, and although Walter Geebus survived the arsenic poisoning, he was never the same. This novel charts Geebus's decline and Bready's efforts to come to terms with the loss of the comic strip he clung to throughout his difficult childhood. Bready is a man of many routines who generally keeps to himself. He ghostwrites five or six comic strips and pumps out a pulp novel every month, but when he tries to write something personal, he feels stymied. He knows the story begins, "Derby's in a rowboat, it's night," but he can't fill in the rest. Bready yearns for the days of his youth, when reading the funnies aloud to his kid sister made everything seem all right. His story is not terribly moving, but it is quite funny, and he makes good company for a few hundred pages. This novel is a nostalgic, witty look back at the glory days of comic strips. <I>--Jill Marquis</I> 1178984 1996 Derby Dugan's Depression Funnies: A Novel total:32|5:7|4:16|3:7|2:2| 32 124 46 2 5 0 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1989 Mon Jun 01 13:38:03 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 24 13:55:24 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Jul 21 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 02 22:09:09 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 06 14:16:47 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Sun Oct 11 07:29:50 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 11 07:29:50 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Thu Jul 30 15:33:27 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 30 15:33:27 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Sun Jun 28 22:13:41 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 28 22:13:41 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Jun 21 12:48:08 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 21 12:48:08 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Jun 09 13:36:44 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 09 13:36:44 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Mon May 25 15:26:16 -0700 2009 Mon May 25 15:26:16 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue May 19 20:05:45 -0700 2009 Tue May 19 20:05:45 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Sat May 16 11:18:22 -0700 2009 Sat May 16 11:18:22 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Oct 27 00:00:00 -0700 1996 Sun Apr 26 20:48:01 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 26 20:48:01 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Tue Apr 21 07:59:46 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 21 07:59:46 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Wed Apr 08 20:48:16 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 08 20:48:16 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Wed Apr 01 13:05:46 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 01 13:05:46 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1996 Sun Mar 29 10:40:48 -0700 2009 Sun Mar 29 10:41:10 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Sat Mar 28 11:00:07 -0700 2009 Sat Mar 28 11:00:07 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Fri Mar 13 14:43:49 -0700 2009 Fri Mar 13 14:44:15 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Thu Mar 12 19:28:25 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 12 19:28:25 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Thu Jan 29 23:24:04 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 29 23:24:04 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Sun Jan 25 08:08:08 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 25 08:08:08 -0800 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=479646