Book Review – Coyote V. Acme by Ian Frazier
The Kid Who Wrote Humor Pieces for the School Newspaper Has a Book
May 9, 2009
In concept, Ian Frazier’s 1997 book Coyote V. Acme (Picador, ISBN: 0312420587) should turn out great: twenty-two essay/short-story hybrids, each satirizing a different topic in American culture from a different point-of-view. However, in execution, Frazier falls between otiose wit and contrived, trying-too-hard absurdity.
The First Essay Gives Way to Much Weaker Writing
First essay “The Last Segment” depicts the unity that The Mary Tyler Moore Show brought to the world, almost convincing the reader that a balance was thrown off upon the cancellation of the series. The writing is pretty good, too: informal, yet, poetic, with a prose-poem that could stand alone thrown in the middle for good measure. This essay was written closer to Frazier’s true thoughts as a humorist, pop-culturist, and literary scholar.
With the next essays came the bad humor that could be (and is) found in freshman creative writing workshops and/or Dave Barry books: dumb, knee-slapping groaners that appeal to middle-aged housewives, clever kids with nothing to say, and old men who are pragmatically tactful and ignorant as to how what’s funny has changed since their glory days. This sort of “nyuk nyuk” tripe ruins almost the entire book, and only parts of essays even come close to resembling interesting as one reads beyond “The Last Segment.”
Frazier and Pop-Culture
Frazier appears to be knowledgeable when he touches upon pop-culture topics, but his end effect is uneventful. “Coyote v. Acme” is as predictable as one would think it is. “Bowell’s Life of Don Johnson” could have been extremely funny if it had forgone the broader appeal of trying to portray someone talking about “his buddy” Don Johnson as this everyday guy and made some cracks geared towards Miami Vice and Johnson’s failed music career. It’s not shop talk: it’s playing to a specific audience.
“Thanks For the Memory” follows Bob Hope’s elaborate and fabricated golfing career with the sort of fair-natured ribbing that tries so hard to nail an edgy-yet-tasteful type of humor that it ends up coming off as safe as a glass of water and a slice of bread. Leno wouldn’t touch this one. Besides, the two contradicting stories from two different biographies as told by the same Bob Hope are funny enough. The pages that follow stomp all over the joke.
The Infamous Line
After standing on his soapbox and waxing heavy-handedly about humor (“Stalin’s Chuckle”), New York (“Making ‘Movies’ In New York”), and tax forms (“Line 46a”), Frazier ends all of his preachy pieces with pseudo-asides that sound like answers to questions nobody asked. “Brandy By Firelight,” “Child of War,” and “The Afternoon of June 8, 1991” are gimmick stories whose only redeeming quality is that they’re short and able to be skipped with no fear of missing a big payoff at the end. With the exception of “The Last Segment,” that statement is representative of the entire collection.
Frazier walks that fine line between genius and stupid, and he walks it very poorly. His randomness is artificial, the interaction between his characters is stock and overwrought with predictable retorts, and – perhaps worst of all – his wit is sharp but pointed at nothing.
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