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Hearing from Wayne and Other Stories
Hardcover with dust jacket 1988 127p. 8.50x5.25x0.80. COLLECTION OF EIGHTEEN STORIES.
127 pages, Hardcover
First published March 12, 1988
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 8, 2012
A nice collection of humorous short stories told in a friendly, matter-of-fact tone that I really enjoyed. Reading this book is kind of like having few beers with a guy you knew in high school, sitting back with a smile on your face, listening to him tell you about all the weird people in the town where he's living now.
---A young boy tells about his friend's uncle, a man much more fascinating than any of his own relatives:
I remember Uncle Jack giving me and Steve packs of firecrackers--the brand name was Rhino Chasers--on the condition we wouldn't tell anyone where they came from. "Even if you lose fingers," he said, which only upped the excitement.
---A freelance writer has trouble getting his work into a new magazine published by . . . his parents.
---A 37-year-old man finds out he has only 37 more years to live:
Boy, just tell a guy he's got only thirty-seven years left on the planet and, once he's finished going a few rounds with the whiskey bottle, watch him scramble for meaning. Watch him turn off "Mary Tyler Moore" reruns he's seen three times and, instead, get outside and enjoy life, maybe drive to the bank, maybe take the long way. Watch him gradually cut his sleep time from eight hours to, say, seven and an quarter. Then see him decide there'll be no more reading Stephen King's Cujo and then going to see the movie Cujo two months later. See him start picking one or the other-- no more of this "both" stuff.
This seems to be the only book Franzen has written, which is a darned shame. I looked him up, and did find this interesting little tidbit:
In Ridgefield, he is famous for having annually staged hilariously ghoulish Halloween extravaganzas on his front lawn, complete with smoke machines, a tumbledown shack, skeletons, mummies, severed body parts, and graveyards. These he displayed in as many as 20 elaborate tableaux with such evocative titles as “Alien Crash,” “Lunatic Asylum” and “Death in the Desert.” In 2006, he gave up the project–which over the years attracted thousands of visitors–and began giving away many props and equipment which he couldn’t bear to simply toss out. “I’m not going to throw away perfectly good rubber hands,” he told The Ridgefield Press, with typical drollery. Franzen is married to cartoonist Roz Chast. She hates Halloween.
He sounds like my kind of guy. Write some more, Bill. I've got those beers waiting.
---A young boy tells about his friend's uncle, a man much more fascinating than any of his own relatives:
I remember Uncle Jack giving me and Steve packs of firecrackers--the brand name was Rhino Chasers--on the condition we wouldn't tell anyone where they came from. "Even if you lose fingers," he said, which only upped the excitement.
---A freelance writer has trouble getting his work into a new magazine published by . . . his parents.
---A 37-year-old man finds out he has only 37 more years to live:
Boy, just tell a guy he's got only thirty-seven years left on the planet and, once he's finished going a few rounds with the whiskey bottle, watch him scramble for meaning. Watch him turn off "Mary Tyler Moore" reruns he's seen three times and, instead, get outside and enjoy life, maybe drive to the bank, maybe take the long way. Watch him gradually cut his sleep time from eight hours to, say, seven and an quarter. Then see him decide there'll be no more reading Stephen King's Cujo and then going to see the movie Cujo two months later. See him start picking one or the other-- no more of this "both" stuff.
This seems to be the only book Franzen has written, which is a darned shame. I looked him up, and did find this interesting little tidbit:
In Ridgefield, he is famous for having annually staged hilariously ghoulish Halloween extravaganzas on his front lawn, complete with smoke machines, a tumbledown shack, skeletons, mummies, severed body parts, and graveyards. These he displayed in as many as 20 elaborate tableaux with such evocative titles as “Alien Crash,” “Lunatic Asylum” and “Death in the Desert.” In 2006, he gave up the project–which over the years attracted thousands of visitors–and began giving away many props and equipment which he couldn’t bear to simply toss out. “I’m not going to throw away perfectly good rubber hands,” he told The Ridgefield Press, with typical drollery. Franzen is married to cartoonist Roz Chast. She hates Halloween.
He sounds like my kind of guy. Write some more, Bill. I've got those beers waiting.
March 6, 2017
I really wanted to like this book; the author is married to Roz Chast, whose cartoons I've long enjoyed. The stories were better at evoking mood and setting than at creating fully drawn characters.
August 9, 2007
I love this book. Really funny short stories.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews