52 McGs.: The Best Obituaries from Legendary New York Times Reporter Robert McG. Thomas
by Robert McG. Thomas
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Book Summary Information
Author: Robert McG. ThomasEditor: Chris Calhoun
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2001-10-23
ISBN: 0743215621
Number of pages: 192
Publisher: Scribner
Book Reviews of 52 McGs.: The Best Obituaries from Legendary New York Times Reporter Robert McG. Thomas
Book Review: Mediocre
Summary: 2 Stars
Certainly more wasteful books (in terms of unrecycled paper and deforestation, as well as intellectual inertia) have been published than 52 McGs, edited by Chris Calhoun, which is a collection of fifty-two of the supposedly most interesting, and well-written, of seven hundred or so obituaries published by a New York Times writer named Robert McGill Thomas, Jr. But even the vapid prose of such hacks as Elizabeth Wurtzel, Dave Eggers, Maya Angelou, Joyce Carol Oates, T.C. Boyle, and David Foster Wallace, can at least be defended by stating that there may have actually been an attempt at something creative going on, despite their repeated failures. This book, a 192 page paperback, put out in 2001, a year after Thomas himself died of cancer, by the Citadel Press, however, could not be more pointless, despite its grandiose subtitle: The Best Obituaries From Legendary New York Times Writer Robert McG. Thomas, Jr.
Here is a sample of the `great stylings' from McG., in his obit titled Minnesota Fats, A Real Hustler With A Pool Cue, Is Dead:
Although his frequent claim that he had never lost a game `when the cheese was on the table,' was more fabrication than exaggeration, according to his first wife, Mr. Wanderone [Fats' real name] was in fact a master hustler who tended to be just as good as he needed to be when he needed to be.
Well, sorry, but if this is the sort of prose that makes one a `legend' to the New York Times, these days, I can state with certainty that the truly great journalist/writers of the past- Lardner, Mencken, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Oscar Wilde- have little to fear in regards to usurpation of their laurels with this work.
Thus, it is not without some irony that I can state that the actually best written and most moving McG. in the book is the only one not written by McG., himself, but about his own death, and written by a Michael T. Kaufman. In it, we get a real sense of a man, not a hit and miss semi-satire, which was the deceased's forte. Clearly, this book was a labor of love, by Calhoun, who is identified merely as a fan of McG.'s (ok, a fan of obits, sheesh!) but it is simply not a joy to read, even for its handful of genuinely funny moments. In a sense, this book could be considered a McG. on the relevance of the modern publishing industry, which is so creatively and ethically bankrupt that it must spoon pabulum like this to readers too lethargic and narcotized to care that they are being insulted.
The industry is survived by millions of disappointed readers still hoping for wit, enlightenment, and publishers who will choose to engage them as beings with a brain
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Summary of 52 McGs.: The Best Obituaries from Legendary New York Times Reporter Robert McG. Thomas
Among his devoted fans, his pieces were known simply as McGs. With a "genius for illuminating that sometimes ephemeral apogee in people's lives when they prove capable of generating a brightly burning spark" "(Columbia Journalism Review)," Robert McG. Thomas Jr. commemorated fascinating, unconventional lives with signature style and wit. "The New York Times" received countless letters over the years from readers moved to tears or laughter by a McG. Eschewing traditionally famous subjects, Thomas favored unsung heroes, eccentrics, and underachievers, including: Edward Lowe, the inventor of Kitty Litter ("Cat Owner's Best Friend"); Angelo Zuccotti, the bouncer at El Morocco ("Artist of the Velvet Rope"); and Kay Halle, a glamorous Cleveland department store heiress who received sixty-four marriage proposals ("An Intimate of Century's Giants"). In one of his classic obituaries, Thomas described Anton Rosenberg as a "storied sometime artist and occasional musician who embodied the Greenwich Village hipster ideal of 1950's cool to such a laid-back degree and with such determined detachment that he never amounted to much of anything." Thomas captured life's ironies and defining moments with elegance and a gift for making a sentence sing. He had an uncanny sense of the passion and personality that make each life unique, and the ability, as Joseph Epstein wrote, to "look beyond the facts and the rigid formula of the obit to touch on a deeper truth." Compiled by Chris Calhoun, one of Thomas's most dedicated readers, and with a fittingly sharp introduction from acclaimed novelist and critic Thomas Mallon, "52 McGs." will win legions of new fans to the masterful writer who transformed theobituary into an art form.Rich & Famous Books
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