Today's Delray Beach News Journal (Wednesday, April 1, 1981) has a review of Richard Grayson's With Hitler in New York:
Book review
WITH HITLER IN NEW YORK.
By Richard Grayson. Taplinger, 1979.
$7.95, 190 pages.
By Jack Saunders
Hannah Arendt wrote a book called The Banality of Evil. Or she wrote about the concept "the banality of evil" in her book Eichmann in Jerusalem. I don't remember. The phrase has entered the language. Like the phrase "The Ugly American" entered the language – backwards. Facts are banal. Evil is banal. Hitler is alive and living in New York.
With Hitler in New York, by Richard Grayson, is a collection of stories about what people do in this country: watch television, eat junk food, go to art museums, visit nursing homes, go to psychiatrists. With Hitler in New York is a serious book. A funny one too.
When a radio station in New York read over the air the names of men who had been picked up for patronizing prostitutes – the so-called john list – Grayson called the station and turned himself in. He wanted his name read "before I strike again."
These stories strike like lunacy.
If your bookstore doesn't have this book, it's available from the publisher (Taplinger Publishing Company, 132 West 22nd Street, New York, N.Y. 10011) for $7.95.
Grayson, who lives in his parents' spare room in Davie, just outside Ojus, doesn't have any, having given all his complimentary author's copies away.
I read a review that compared Grayson to Steve Martin and Fran Leibowitz. I'd compare him to Franz Kafka. No, I'd compare him to Nathanael West.
Man, this guy can write.
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