The Baby Train and Other Lusty Urban Legends

by Jan Harold Brunvand

America's premier folk detective is back on the case, sniffing out those zany but dubious stories that "really happened" to a friend of your sister's boyfriend's accountant's mechanic. Jan Harold Brunvand―''Mr. Urban Legend" [ Smithsonian ]―tracks the most fabulous tales making today's cocktail-party circuit and shows why those stories that sound too good to be true probably are too good to be true.

The eponymous episode―"The Baby Train"―sheds light on certain predawn activities that have linked unusually high birth rates to the whim of train schedule makers. Other stories offer a revealing peek behind the story of "The Exploding Bra," expose the embarrassing source of "The Hairdresser's Error," resurrect a "Failed Suicide" Buster Keaton would have died for, and show why adults are better off not bringing their comic book fantasies out of the closet. From "Superhero Hijinx" to "The Shocking Videotape" to "The Accidental Cannibal," The Baby Train uncovers the mysteries behind some of the bawdiest, goriest, funniest, most pyrotechnic urban legends yet.

Genres: Nonfiction, Folklore, Urban Legends, Humor, Pop Culture, Reference, Trivia

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Jan Harold Brunvand (born 1933) is a professor emeritus of English at the University of Utah in the United States, best known for spreading the concept of the urban legend, or modern folklore. Before his work, folk tales were associated with ancient times or rural cultures; Brunvand's breakthrough was to take concepts developed in the academic study of traditional folktales and apply them to stories circulating in the modern world.

Brunvand is the author of several well-known books on the topic of urban legends, starting with The Vanishing Hitchhiker in 1981. This book brought urban legends to popular attention in the United States. Follow-up works include The Choking Doberman (1984), The Mexican Pet (1988), Curses! Broiled Again! (1990), The Baby Train (1993), and others. He also edited the one-volume American Folklore: An Encyclopedia (1996), as well as several textbooks.

Born in Cadillac, Michigan, Brunvand received a Ph.D. in folklore from Indiana University in 1961. He taught at several U.S. universities before joining the University of Utah in 1966. He retired in 1996, but remains a popular speaker and writer; he gave the keynote address at the 2003 meeting of the Missouri Folklore Society, of which he is a longtime member.

Reviews

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Don't judge a book by it's cover - and this is why. When I saw the title, "The Baby Train," I thought that the title urban legend would be this fantastic tale of child trafficking - babies taken from young, unwed mothers, promised up for adoption, and then put on a train to be ferried all across the US. What I was surprised to discover is that the Baby Train urban legend was nowhere close to what I imagined (it was actually quite dull in comparison) - and that this book reads more like a collection of newspaper columns. Which, well, it probably was. I think, to be fair, for the time, this book may have been a great resource - but for me, it was a rehashing of stories that I'd already been familiar with, in no small part thanks to the "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" series by Alvin Schwartz. What both collections boil down to is a collection of urban legends, myths, and folklore - but somehow, I still find the Schwartz collection more engaging. Overall, this collection boasts a series of urban legends, ranging from academic to cultural, and I think the biggest drawback of this collection is that it banks on the fact that the reader is familiar with ALL of the legends - or that the reader follows this author religiously and has read his previous books.

[Tom G · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was obsessed with urban legends as a kid and the legends in this book takes me right back to the good old days of classic, web 1.0 Snopes (sadly unarchived, last I checked). Looking back, the content of these legends seems so quaint compared to the malicious, omnipresent disinformation of today. But the pernicious virality of untrue tales seems to be eternal.

[Josie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I randomly got this book from openlibrary.org and downloaded it to make sure the app on my tablet that allowed me to read openlibrary books worked.

I was hoping the book would be like the Snopes of the '90s. It wasn't. Where Snopes would try to tell of the origin of an urban legend, this book just tells and re-tells the legends in all its variations.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's "little room" reading (if you get my drift) and the anthropological "where did the story come from?" whoo-haa can become wearying... yet I still get a kick out of stories about urban legends. (Ministry note: they make great sources for sermon illustrations, btw.)

[Christiane · Rating 3 out of 5]

More urban legends from the great Brunvand. The title refers to a town with a train passing through every morning at some early hour, blowing its loud whistle and waking everyone. And since it was too early to get up, and too late to fall back asleep...apparently the population just exploded!

[Andy Mirs · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another great book by Brunvand. As an added bonus, it contains a tale type index at the end that categorizes all of the legends from this book, as well as Brunvand's previous urban legend books.

[HeavyReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

More urban legand goodness from the fabulous Jan Harold Brunvand. I like this book a lot. I also like that the word "lusty" is in the title.