What do you think?
Rate this book
The Nervous Wreck
From the author of "Too Much Efficiency." This edition is illustrated with scenes from the play.
348 pages, Hardcover
Published April 28, 2008
About the author
E.J. Rath
18 booksE.J. Rath was the pseudonym of J. Chauncey Corey Brainerd and his wife Edith Rathbone Brainerd. Chauncey and Edith, who were both writers, went on to collaborate on a number of stories together under the pen name E.J. Rath. Chauncey was a veteran of the Spanish-American War. At the time of his death he had been the Washington bureau chief for the Brooklyn Eagle for over ten years. They were married on June 4, 1903.
While watching a movie one snowy night in Washington, DC, Chauncey Corey Brainerd and his wife Edith were killed when the flat roof of Crandall's Knickerbocker Theatre collapsed under the weight of over two feet of heavy snow. More than 200 other moviegoers and theater employees were killed or injured on that night during what became known as The Great Knickerbocker Storm of 1922.
While watching a movie one snowy night in Washington, DC, Chauncey Corey Brainerd and his wife Edith were killed when the flat roof of Crandall's Knickerbocker Theatre collapsed under the weight of over two feet of heavy snow. More than 200 other moviegoers and theater employees were killed or injured on that night during what became known as The Great Knickerbocker Storm of 1922.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 4, 2026
The Nervous Wreck by EJ Rath. Started as a serial, compiled into a book, turned into a play, then a Zigfield musical, then a movie called Whoopee! And finally a Danny Kaye film called Up In Arms. With each iteration, the adaptations got further away from the source material and since Goodreads can’t be bothered to provide a synopsis, I will. This is for the one other person who will read this book.
Plot:
A chemist from Pittsburg named Henry Williams is staying at the Bar-M ranch in Montana because he is a nervous wreck, self diagnosed. He is variously referred to as the Wreck and Henry Williams.
Sally Morgan, daughter of Dad Morgan who owns the ranch, is engaged to sheriff Bob Wells, who is a bit of a blowhard. It’s hard to tell how much affection exists between them, but it’s expected they’ll get married, so they are engaged. She wants to catch a train to Chicago to buy a trousseau. The Wreck offers to drive her across the prairie in his “flivver,” which is 1920s speak for a cheap automobile (usually a model-T). Typically, she would take a horse the 30 miles due to lack of direct roads, but she agrees to be driven due to the Wreck’s obstinacy and to spite Bob who doesn’t believe the car can make it cross country.
They get lost fairly quickly and spend a night in the woods. Eventually, they find a road but run out of gas. Another car comes along that evening and the Wreck hails them, offering to buy some gas from them. The occupants, clearly wealthy, refuse. So, the Wreck gets a gun from Sally and holds them up, stealing their gas.
He and Sally make a break for it, but soon are hungry, having run out of sandwiches. They find a ranch and ask for breakfast. The ranch manager, Charlie McSween, says yes if they make it themselves. So Sally cooks up a meal. Charlie tells them it’s Providence they arrived because the owners are on the way and the Chinese cooks he hired were run off by the ranch hands (racism is the cause. We don’t get much exploration other than McSween’s bigotry and while minimal, it is present in a few chapters). He hides a wheel of the flivver and holds the Wreck and Sally hostage, making them cook for the owners. And who are the owners? Why, the very people the Wreck robbed of gas! The Underwoods.
Stuck, our intrepid duo try to keep a low profile, posing as a married couple. Eventually, the sheriff arrives as he is tracking a gang who has done other stick ups around the county. The Underwoods claim it was a gang of 6 men who robbed them of their jewelry etc. Sally is irate that Bob is hunting her down, even if he doesn’t know it. When the flivver is discovered in a locked shed, things come to a head.
Sally and the Wreck find the wheel and escape only to be captured by the actual stick up gang! They manage to get away and are promptly caught by Bob Wells and his posse. All’s well that ends well, they get the affair sorted out and we even get a wedding.
Thoughts:
This was a fun book. Really quick to read and laugh out loud funny at points. The serialized aspect of it comes through as each chapter is relatively self contained. While there is some 1920s slang, it’s understandable to the modern reader and the edition I got has photos from the stage play. I wish I could find a recording to watch, but I don’t think it’s been staged since its Broadway debut in 1923.
The Wreck describes himself as nervous but both myself and Sally aren’t convinced. He’s stubborn and quick to anger, very determined to get his way, but at no point do his nerves stop him from action. If anything, they compel him to action and often without thinking through the consequences. He claims to be an insomniac and yet sleeps soundly at every chance. He gets confused by women, but I don’t think he’s the only man to ever wonder what goes on in the mind of a woman. I’m not entirely sure what Sally sees in him. It would make *me* nervous to be with someone so volatile, but maybe she’s the one person who can tame him.
For the curious reader who has made it this far, my review of the two film adaptations is below, because I’m nothing if not a completionist.
Adaptations:
Whoopee! (1930)
Florenz Zigfield Jr turned the play into a musical then sold the rights due to going bankrupt during the Depression. So, we get this pre-code musical film, origin of the song Makin’ Whoopee.
Eddie Cantor stars as Henry Williams, the comic relief. The general plot is followed but now Sally is in love with a part-Indian named Wanenis. She can’t marry Wanenis due to racism but it’s ok, he’s actually white the whole time. If you expected this to be racist, buckle up because it’s even more racist than that. Cantor’s shtick is Jewish comedy, so there’s that element then layer on his blackface routine (prolonged) and Native American stereotypes and gay jokes and The Goldwyn Girls doing intricate Busby Berkeley routines in feather head dresses and you’ve got yourself…the highest grossing movie of 1930 with an Oscar nomination. On its own it’s kind of cute, but you can’t really separate the unsavory elements from the performances.
Up In Arms (1944)
Danny Kaye stars as Danny Weems, hypochondriac. The film facts on IMDb claim that Weems is based on the Nervous Wreck but the similarities stop before they start. It’s a WWII propaganda musical film with unmemorable songs, classic Kaye antics I’m sure killed in the 40s and, you guessed it, racism. There’s a song with minstrelsy tones as well as a long sequence in which Danny outwits a group of Japanese troops.
Basic plot: Danny loves a nurse, Mary, but Mary loves Danny’s friend Joe, and Virginia loves Danny, but Danny’s too infatuated to see any of this. They all get sent to the front and antics ensue on the boat.
Would you believe this film was nominated for TWO Oscars? Dinah Shore is a standout, but this whole movie was nails on a chalkboard for me.
Plot:
A chemist from Pittsburg named Henry Williams is staying at the Bar-M ranch in Montana because he is a nervous wreck, self diagnosed. He is variously referred to as the Wreck and Henry Williams.
Sally Morgan, daughter of Dad Morgan who owns the ranch, is engaged to sheriff Bob Wells, who is a bit of a blowhard. It’s hard to tell how much affection exists between them, but it’s expected they’ll get married, so they are engaged. She wants to catch a train to Chicago to buy a trousseau. The Wreck offers to drive her across the prairie in his “flivver,” which is 1920s speak for a cheap automobile (usually a model-T). Typically, she would take a horse the 30 miles due to lack of direct roads, but she agrees to be driven due to the Wreck’s obstinacy and to spite Bob who doesn’t believe the car can make it cross country.
They get lost fairly quickly and spend a night in the woods. Eventually, they find a road but run out of gas. Another car comes along that evening and the Wreck hails them, offering to buy some gas from them. The occupants, clearly wealthy, refuse. So, the Wreck gets a gun from Sally and holds them up, stealing their gas.
He and Sally make a break for it, but soon are hungry, having run out of sandwiches. They find a ranch and ask for breakfast. The ranch manager, Charlie McSween, says yes if they make it themselves. So Sally cooks up a meal. Charlie tells them it’s Providence they arrived because the owners are on the way and the Chinese cooks he hired were run off by the ranch hands (racism is the cause. We don’t get much exploration other than McSween’s bigotry and while minimal, it is present in a few chapters). He hides a wheel of the flivver and holds the Wreck and Sally hostage, making them cook for the owners. And who are the owners? Why, the very people the Wreck robbed of gas! The Underwoods.
Stuck, our intrepid duo try to keep a low profile, posing as a married couple. Eventually, the sheriff arrives as he is tracking a gang who has done other stick ups around the county. The Underwoods claim it was a gang of 6 men who robbed them of their jewelry etc. Sally is irate that Bob is hunting her down, even if he doesn’t know it. When the flivver is discovered in a locked shed, things come to a head.
Sally and the Wreck find the wheel and escape only to be captured by the actual stick up gang! They manage to get away and are promptly caught by Bob Wells and his posse. All’s well that ends well, they get the affair sorted out and we even get a wedding.
Thoughts:
This was a fun book. Really quick to read and laugh out loud funny at points. The serialized aspect of it comes through as each chapter is relatively self contained. While there is some 1920s slang, it’s understandable to the modern reader and the edition I got has photos from the stage play. I wish I could find a recording to watch, but I don’t think it’s been staged since its Broadway debut in 1923.
The Wreck describes himself as nervous but both myself and Sally aren’t convinced. He’s stubborn and quick to anger, very determined to get his way, but at no point do his nerves stop him from action. If anything, they compel him to action and often without thinking through the consequences. He claims to be an insomniac and yet sleeps soundly at every chance. He gets confused by women, but I don’t think he’s the only man to ever wonder what goes on in the mind of a woman. I’m not entirely sure what Sally sees in him. It would make *me* nervous to be with someone so volatile, but maybe she’s the one person who can tame him.
For the curious reader who has made it this far, my review of the two film adaptations is below, because I’m nothing if not a completionist.
Adaptations:
Whoopee! (1930)
Florenz Zigfield Jr turned the play into a musical then sold the rights due to going bankrupt during the Depression. So, we get this pre-code musical film, origin of the song Makin’ Whoopee.
Eddie Cantor stars as Henry Williams, the comic relief. The general plot is followed but now Sally is in love with a part-Indian named Wanenis. She can’t marry Wanenis due to racism but it’s ok, he’s actually white the whole time. If you expected this to be racist, buckle up because it’s even more racist than that. Cantor’s shtick is Jewish comedy, so there’s that element then layer on his blackface routine (prolonged) and Native American stereotypes and gay jokes and The Goldwyn Girls doing intricate Busby Berkeley routines in feather head dresses and you’ve got yourself…the highest grossing movie of 1930 with an Oscar nomination. On its own it’s kind of cute, but you can’t really separate the unsavory elements from the performances.
Up In Arms (1944)
Danny Kaye stars as Danny Weems, hypochondriac. The film facts on IMDb claim that Weems is based on the Nervous Wreck but the similarities stop before they start. It’s a WWII propaganda musical film with unmemorable songs, classic Kaye antics I’m sure killed in the 40s and, you guessed it, racism. There’s a song with minstrelsy tones as well as a long sequence in which Danny outwits a group of Japanese troops.
Basic plot: Danny loves a nurse, Mary, but Mary loves Danny’s friend Joe, and Virginia loves Danny, but Danny’s too infatuated to see any of this. They all get sent to the front and antics ensue on the boat.
Would you believe this film was nominated for TWO Oscars? Dinah Shore is a standout, but this whole movie was nails on a chalkboard for me.
October 23, 2018
Hilarious
January 19, 2022
Very funny. Old book.
March 5, 2024
Such a pleasant, fun read. :)
December 12, 2014
I read the script format...so I am not truly sure this version is the correct one. But it's a funny funny play!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews