<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: A fitting tribute
Review: An enjoyable collection of obituaries written my Robert McG. Thomas Jr. These short (2-3 page) obituaries will make you smile and wonder what would be written about yourself. Some of the people you will recognize, most you will not, but you'll gain an understanding and appreciation for their time on this planet.Recommended
Rating:
Summary: A fitting tribute
Review: An enjoyable collection of obituaries written my Robert McG. Thomas Jr. These short (2-3 page) obituaries will make you smile and wonder what would be written about yourself. Some of the people you will recognize, most you will not, but you'll gain an understanding and appreciation for their time on this planet. Recommended
Rating: 
Summary: Laugh out loud funny, but always respectful
Review: Bob Thomas was a fine, generous, kind man with a knack for throwing a great party. He was also one of his generation's most talented observers of modern culture via his legendary NYT obits. While his posthumous descriptions of Americans both great and small are often bitingly amusing, his respect for his subjects was always palpable. It is this combination that makes his writing so uniquely fabulous.
Rating:
Summary: Obit writing at its best
Review: For many years I clipped Robert McG Thomas's obits. I cannot remember a mediocre one. He had the rare ability to capture the essence of each person he wrote about. I miss his obits. This is a fine book.
Rating:
Summary: Quirky, fascinationg compilation of obituaries
Review: Read 52 MCGS: THE BEST OBITUARIES FROM LEGENDARY
NEW YORK TIMES WRITER ROBERT MCG. THOMAS, JR. . . . this
is a quirky, fascinating compilation of obituaries about unsung
heroes, eccentrics and underachievers . . . among the inclusions were Edward Lowe, the inventor of Kitty Litter ("Cat Owner's Best Friend"); Angelo Zuccotti, the bouncer at El Morocco ("Artist of the Velvet Rope"); and Kay Halle, a glamorous Cleveland department store heiress who received 64 marriage proposals ("An Intimate of Century's Giants"). Thomas never got to put these pieces into book form. He died, but a fan of his work decided that his work should live on . . . and I'm glad this was the case . . . Thomas had the gift of being able to find something worth writing about--regardless of the subject . . . my only regret is that all obituaries in loca papers aren't as interesting . .. but as long as I don't come across mine, I won't complain! There were several memorable passages; among them:
[in an obituary about Francine Katzenbogen] Her neighbors were
not amused that she planned to house 20 cats in a converted
two-story garage she had refurbished at a cost of $100,000. The
luxurious cat complex included tile floors, climbing towers,
scratching posts, skylights and cozy, low-lying window ledges
where the cats could stretch out and watch the world outside
their air-conditioned lair. Not content to recognize a Brooklyn accent, Mr. Berger drew
on his broader knowledge of American speech and history to
develop a theory of just how the signature "Toidy-told Street"
evolved. It was, he theorized, a result of the close commercial
connections with the pre-Civil War South in which upper-class
southern speech, primarily from New Orleans and Charleston,
SC, was imported and hammered down to a lower-class
Brooklyneese. A man given to gross exaggeration when simple embellishment
would suffice, Mr. McCartney also claimed to have visited every state except Hawaii: His goats couldn't swim that far, he
explained, and if they could, they'd just end up eating the grass skirts off the hula dancers anyway.
Rating:
Summary: The Last Word
Review: Regular readers of The New York Times will have noticed that while the paper's style has a certain consistently, some of its writers stand out anyway. Robert McG. Thomas was one of those writers. He made his mark not with flash, but with grace, and he did it in the most unlikely place of all: the obituary pages. Thomas (who died in early 2000) had an eye for detail, and an amazing touch in telling not just a life story, but the story behind it. Many obit junkies picked up on and actively sought Thomas's obits between 1995 and 1999; one was Chris Calhoun, who has pulled together this excellent collection of 52 of McG's finest offerings. They aren't stories of the most famous figures who passed on during his tenure. Quite the opposite, these are often people you hadn't heard of, but who, thanks to Thomas's style, won't want to forget. He could be serious, and he could be funny. He's as good writing about the South Vietnamese officer who famously executed a Viet Cong prisoner on camera as he is with "The Goat Man." He's as insightful on the woman who helped create soap operas as he is on the Greenwich Village icon who created nothing but a hipster reputation. Every miniature profile here entertains and informs, as the cliché goes. This is a great little collection; one could only wish for more.
Rating:
Summary: 52 McGems
Review: There are two great experiences in newspaper reading, one if the wedding announcements in the Sunday NY Times, the other is the obituary page every day. No other paper does it the way the Times does, putting a smile on my face even as a life passes before us. The greatest NYT obituary writer of all was Robert McG. Thomas; and nobody laughed louder at his witty and ironic observations than Chris Calhoun, the famous book editor at Sterling Lord who compiled this neat deck of 52 of Thomas' wryest and wittiest obituaries. From a Jewish matordor, to the guy who buried Lee Harvey Oswald to a character whose main claim to fame was that he was the guy the three stooges stuck in the eye all the time, Its uproarious. Just a couple of examples: In an obituary of a guy who discovered a stone age tribe in the Philipines, Thomas ponders whether they were really primitives or it was all a hoax. Either way, he writes, "It was a reflection of their rapid acculturalization that in 1988 several members of the tribe filed a libel suit against anthropologists who called them fakers." That one cracked me up. So did the one about a woman who won a lottery. The real story was she loved cats and spent all her money on cats; but they she died because she was allerigic to them. Well, it was funny to me. Then there is one about a famous genealogist who ended up disproving his wife's claime to be a descendant of one of the founding fathers. That one ends with a quote from a son saying he has not interst in the topic noting, " We were victimes of genealogical overkill." Like the subjects of the obits, this is all subtle. These are not obits of famous people, most had brushes with greatness like the skit on the Letterman show. They lucked into an invention or found a famous golf ball or became a whiz at duckpins. My only regret is that there weren't more of them. 93 McGs would have had a better ring to it. The book ends with the obituary of Thomas himself, who died in 2000 at the age of 60. It is unfortunate that the editor didn't include all of the obituaries mentioned in his obituary, since it would be natural that you want to go back and look at them after they were mentioned. But picking 52 out of a collection of nearly 700 is a tough task and Calhoun had to draw the line somewhere. and that is a minor quibble. I found myself reading them all out loud to my wife and daughter, who enjoyed them every bit as much as I did.
Rating:
Summary: eclectic and witty
Review: This was given to me as a present. I had never heard of the book before, and indeed, when I told people about it, I always got strange looks. But the 52 capsules of people's lives--not all of them well-known but they're people you should know about--are fascinating. Some personal favorites are the guy who invented the U.S. zip code and the founder of an AIDS group in a small town.
Rating:
Summary: You can't go wrong with this one!
Review: When this book was first recommended to me by a friend, I must admit I was a little put off. A book of obituaries? Now there's a fun read! Although I know there are "die-hard" obit enthusiasts out there, I certainly don't count myself among them. All of this is leading to the further admission that I ordered the book with some trepidation. I needn't have worried. This book is an absolute joy. To say that it is well-written would be an understatement of Homeric proportions as Mr. Thomas had a subtle way with words that hints at Twain (I know! I know! They're "just" obituaries, but this gentleman could turn a phrase with the best of them!). Far from being ghoulish or depressing, these 52 McGs are fascinating celebrations of everyday extraordinary lives. Most importantly, each humorous account is filled with such warmth and respect that you don't get the feeling you're snickering at some poor dead guy "behind his back". 52 McGs falls into the category of "little discoveries that you can't wait to share with other people." Heartily recommended as an addition to your library or as a gift to anyone that enjoys highly skilled writing.
<< 1 >>
| 
