The latest Ventura County News (February 4, 1980) features a review of Richard Grayson's With Hitler in New York:
The Ventura County News
Book Beat
____________
A Superb Mixture
by Lynne Gagnon
With Hitler in New York, by Richard Grayson (Toplinger [sic] Publishing Company, $7.95)
Richard Grayson offers us a comc relief collection of timely, well-designed stories.
Grayson cite the anarchist's bomb that killed Czar Alexander II in St. Petersburg, 1881, leading to many influences in America, namely "the comedy of Woody Allen and Lenny Bruce; the popularity of psychoanalysis;. . . the fact that it is no longer considered good form to use the word 'Jew' as a verb meaning 'to bargain'. . . and to my being here in these United States, to my becoming a fiction writer, to my writing this book, and ultimately to your reading it."
The 27 stories in With Hitler in New York are a generous blend of Kurt , Vonnegut, Woody Allen, Erma Bombeck and Fran Lebowitz, combined with shell steak, Brussels sprouts, a case of shingles, therapy sessions, an uncle who speaks like Donald Duck because of radiation treatments, an ex-lover turned gay (probably because of you) and a Truffaut double feature at the Carnegie Hall Cinema.
Favorite stories include "Classified Personal," "The Art of Living," "Driving Slow," "Wednesday Night at Our House" and "Chief Justice Burger, Teen Idol."
From "The Art of Living":
"You go to visit your grandmother in the hospital. . . In the next room you can hear people talking about you. 'He's a real prick,' somebody says. You can hear another person nodding."
From "Classified Personal":
"To Tired of Being Hurt: I'm a W/F 18 who loves, absolutely adores. . . The Eagles. Springsteen is great too! You appeal to me as a warm human being who wants to share that warmth. Come and be a part of a friendship that can stand up against the cruel stabs of the world. Reply to You'll Never Cry. . ."
"HELP!! I'm a guy trapped in a girl's body! I intend to change surgically. I need friends with the same problems. . . LOOKING FOR AN ECHO!"
From "Wednesday Night at Our House":
"What does David want his mother not to do?
David tells her not to drive his father's 1971 Buick Century, or at least to drive it to the Skyland Shopping Mall once a day and no more.
Why does he say this?
Because David's mother has had arthritis for many years and has not driven a car since 1971; because she is going deaf and getting senile; because David fears that she will kill herself or other residents of North Miami Beach."
From "Slowly, Slowly in the Wind":
"We watch Farrah Fawcett-Majors trying to sell us a car. 'Don't you think she's got a foreign accent?' Grandpa asks. Nobody answers him. We are all eating our junk food. . . Another teaser for the news: 'Coming up next. A building crane falls and kills a little girl.' 'Oh, look,' Great-Grandma Chaikah says, 'that's the one they didn't show last night at eleven.'"
Richard Grayson gets the prize for making us laugh at the ridiculous insanity surrounding our lives. But the award is two-fold, as he also forces us to examine people and what they do to us. And more importantly, what we do to them.
With Hitler in New York is a superb mixture of comedy, drama, satire and philosophy. This book will not remain on your bookshelf long. If it is not read several times, it will be passed on to others and others and others. It might be a good idea to keep two on hand.
(Lynne Gagnon is a local free lance writer.)
