Lamentations of the Father
To say that Ian Frazier is clever and funny would not do the man justice. He has a knack for taking the mundane and ridiculous and turning it into literature that is at once a well-observed rendering of human nature and highfalutin' nonsense. Take, for example, his musings on rap, a.k.a., "The New Poetry," one of the essays in his 10th book, Lamentations of the Father: "At once a voice arose among/ The bleak twigs overhead/ In a full-heated evensong/ Of joy illimited;/ Hunh! Hotpants!"
Then, there's his plea for political correctness for idiots in the essay "What I Am": "I would like it known that I am not an 'idiot.' I am a person who suffers from idiocy. Nobody knows what it is like to deal with crippling bouts of idiocy while trying to lead a normal life. The last thing I need is for somebody to make it harder by pointing out what an 'idiot' I am." Apparently, he's an idiot because, according to his wife, he is utterly incapable of putting the dishes into the dishwasher correctly. He may not know how to load it right, but he sure does know how to write.
--Aileen Torres
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