Excelsior, you fathead!

I’m a bit disappointed in myself. I counted up all of the books I read during 2005 and found that they totaled only eight. Eight! A few books were left off, such as a guide to digital SLR cameras, social welfare programs in the South since the 1930s, and an eleven hundred page behemoth of a biography of FDR, all of which I’m still working on. With the demands of work and family I know that I don’t have that much free time for reading but at one point not too long ago I was reading on average at least twelve to fifteen books a year. However, that was before the Dark Times, before College, when I was compelled to read because I had to not because I wanted to. Nothing draws the fun out of reading as being perpetually pummeled by articles on special interest groups or the writings of Thomas Hobbes, in whom my interest in his writing was nasty, brutish, and short. But in 2005 I shook off the post-traumatic stress of compulsory reading and began to pick up the pieces.

In early November I picked up a copy of “In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash,” by Jean Shepherd. Being a fan of the movie “A Christmas Story,” it had long been my goal to read the book upon which the movie had been, albeit loosely, based. I had read the comments about the book on Amazon in advance trying to get a feel whether the book was worth reading or not as I had never read any of Shepherd’s material before. Perhaps the best way to describe Shepherd is that he was a satirist. During the 1950s, 60s, and 70s he had his own late night radio show on WOR radio in New York City. He started off as a DJ in Cincinnati in the late 1940s, but found he preferred to spin tales rather than play music, much to the chagrin of his bosses. He did some work on television and wrote articles and stories that appeared in Playboy, Mad Magazine, Village Voice, and Field & Stream, but mostly he is known amongst his fans, his “Night People” he once called them, for his late night radio program. Shepherd passed away in October 1999, but his fans maintain a web site dedicated to his life and works.

Perusing the book’s entry on Amazon, almost all of the customer comments were positive, though a few were negative and were obviously posted by people who thought the book was a novelization of “A Christmas Story,” which it is not. Rather, the book takes place roughly twenty years after the events in the movie. Ralphy has moved to New York City and has returned to the fictional Hohman, Indiana for a visit. Once there he stops by a bar owned by his friend Flick (the kid who sticks his tongue to a pole). From there the book becomes a running series of stories as Ralphy and Flick reminisce about the past. The first sixty pages or so comprise most of the stories that would eventually become the movie, but the remaining stories are worth reading in their own right. Such as the tale of a drunken neighbor who builds his own firework, over-stuffed with gunpowder, and proceeds to blow up the front of his own home. Or the tale of Ralphy, in search of fodder for a fourth grade book report, finding an adult romance novel in his parents’ bedroom and does a write-up about that—much to the shocked surprise of his teacher.

There are some differences between the book and the movie, as can be expected. The world of Hohman, Indiana that Shepherd writes about in the book is much different than what appears in the movie. The film shows a bright, somewhat cheery and sentimental version of the town. But the city Shepherd describes in the book is a dark, dirty mill town caught in the throes of the Depression. The unemployed face foreclosure and disappear from town afterwards, leaving neighborhood kids behind wondering what happened to their friends as they bounce rocks off of street signs and the sides of buildings with their slingshots. Those who haven’t lost their job live in fear that they will. It is not a hopeful setting and certainly not one that would set a festive tone for a holiday movie.

Admittedly I enjoyed my first foray into the world of Jean Shepherd’s writing. And with my employer about to replenish my bank account, it’s time to get going on beating last year’s total of eight books—that is if I can get through that FDR biography.