Reuben, Reuben

Reuben, Reuben. Jacket design by John Alcorn 8vo. pp. 436. . Molto buono (Very Good). . Prima edizione (First Edition, First Printing). .

"The funniest serious writer to be found on either side of the Atlantic."--Kingsley Amis

"De Vries is that most serious of all individuals, a humorist. With a devilish eye and a merciless skill, he has chronicled the excesses, fantasies, and absurdities of the land of exurbia, particularly that strip of it that stretches along the Connecticut shore east of New York. He has made the region glow on the literary map as if it were illuminated by the phosphorescence of its own decay."--Peter Buitenhuis "New York Times "

"De Vries's new novel, "Reuben, Reuben", is his longest, his most ambitious, and his best. . . . The comedy is still delightful and omnipresent, but the satire is more important and deadly serious."--Orville Prescott "New York Times "

"De Vries's new novel, "Reuben, Reuben," is his longest, his most ambitious, and his best. . . . The comedy is still delightful and omnipresent, but the satire is more important and deadly serious."--Orville Prescott "New York Times "

"A trio of long out-of-print books, republished this fall by the University of Chicago Press, underscores the satirical brilliance of a mostly forgotten humorist. De Vries skewered a distinctly male form of idiocy, demonstrated by characters who are witty, well-spoken, and lacking what a later generation would call emotional intelligence."--Jonathan Hiskes "Curator "

"De Vries was an editor at "Poetry" magazine, a staff writer at "The New Yorker," and the author of some two dozen of the wittiest novels you'll ever read, including the masterworks "The Blood of the Lamb" and "Slouching Toward Kalamazoo," as well as "The Tunnel of Love" and "Reuben, Reuben," just resurrected in handsome paperback by the University of Chicago Press. . . . A goulash of one-liners does not a novel make, and part of De Vries's vitalizing talent lies in his storytelling efficiency, his deft command of narrative form. Told, with "Rashomon "effect, from three wildly distinct points of view--a scheming chicken farmer, a Welsh rake who might be Dylan Thomas, and an incompetent British actor--"Reuben, Reuben "excavates the suburban eccentricities of 1950s Connecticut. . . . Only those with a consummate lack of cleverness wield the word 'clever' as an insult, and De Vries demonstrates just how much can be done with a creative intelligence charged by the clever and satirical and ironic. Let us now praise those saints at the University of Chicago Press who possess the smarts and good taste to return to print a peerless American maestro of wit."--William Giraldi "The Millions "

De Vries is that most serious of all individuals, a humorist. With a devilish eye and a merciless skill, he has chronicled the excesses, fantasies, and absurdities of the land of exurbia, particularly that strip of it that stretches along the Connecticut shore east of New York. He has made the region glow on the literary map as if it were illuminated by the phosphorescence of its own decay. --Peter Buitenhuis "New York Times ""

De Vries s new novel, "Reuben, Reuben," is his longest, his most ambitious, and his best. . . . The comedy is still delightful and omnipresent, but the satire is more important and deadly serious. --Orville Prescott "New York Times ""

The funniest serious writer to be found on either side of the Atlantic. --Kingsley Amis"

A trio of long out-of-print books, republished this fall by the University of Chicago Press, underscores the satirical brilliance of a mostly forgotten humorist. De Vries skewered a distinctly male form of idiocy, demonstrated by characters who are witty, well-spoken, and lacking what a later generation would call emotional intelligence. --Jonathan Hiskes "Curator ""