A Fistful of Fig Newtons

By:

Synopsis
Jean Shepherd was one of America's favorite humorists, his most notable achievement being the creation of the indefatigable Ralphie Parker and his quest for a BB gun in the holiday classic A Christmas Story. But he was so much more, a comic Garrison Keillor-like figure whose unique voice transcended the airwaves and affected a whole generation of nostalgic Americans. A Fistful of Fig Newtons is classic Jean Shepherd--sidesplittingly funny and sardonically irreverent. Here are Shepherd's wild and wacky adventures, a dozen truer-than-life tales of college life on the G.I. Bill, of "Kidhood" in Hammond, Indiana, of tailgating on the Jersey Turnpike, and of other familiar defeats and humilations. It is a brilliant comic assessment of American life--all of them delivered in Jean Shepherd's witty, classy, unforgettable style.
Copyright:
1981

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
ISBN-13:
9780307768704
Related ISBNs:
9780385188432
Publisher:
Crown Publishing Group
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
Snow Pond Productions, Inc.
Adult content:
Yes
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
Literature and Fiction, Humor
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

Reviews

5 out of 5

By on

In Jean Shepherd's first 3 books of short pieces, none of the stories featured Ralphie and his gang over the age of 16 or 17. In this book, some of the stories are of a much more adult nature, and all are wildly funny. One is a familiar kid story--Ralphie and the gang at summer camp. The title tale is a story that could have happened in any dorm room on any college campus in the good old USA. 2 are high school stories--Lost At C, an adventure in algebra; and "The Great Ice Cream War," about a price war in Hohman, Indiana. Two feature our hero in the Army-one on a troop train, one as Ralphie is let out of the Army for good and comes home to claim the life he fought to preserve. Like his fellow humorist James Herriot, we fans can all be glad Shepherd never faced German or Japanese bullets--something tells me two funny men would have been easy targets, and the world would have been robbed of countless laughs. I know I turned to this book in particular, on the sad morning my father died. As at other bad times in my life, Shepherd's work proved a comfort on that gloomy day, and ultimately a soporific, allowing me to get much-needed sleep I had been denied owing to the crisis going on at that time. As some of these pieces appeared in "Playboy," the language is adult-appropriate. particularly in the Army stories, the men speak in the lingo of soldiers the world over--and that isn't kid-worthy. I love this book, like the 3 before it, and the world lost a good one when Shepherd quit writing books.