And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. For Bemelmans was 'the man who came to cocktails'. Others can stick to his usually funny Twitter feed.Īn extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. Hardly groundbreaking comedy material, but the book will appeal to Gaffigan’s fans. Later in the book, when he compares a 3-year-old with insomnia to a heroin addict going through withdrawal, you know you’re beginning to witness a once-effective formula running itself into the ground. But as the book progresses, the rapid-fire assault of jokes and punch lines can seem strained, and Gaffigan sometimes misses his targets and pulls up lame, much like a heavyweight boxer who comes out of his corner scoring points early but punches himself out halfway through the fight. His prose style resembles that of most comedians who write books: The sentences are simple, short and punchy, with much the same rhythms of delivery as their stand-up counterparts.

revels in, only Gaffigan is a bit less mean-spirited.

He gets much mileage out of the sort of exaggerated mock cruelty that comedian Louis C.K. Topics include his wife’s obvious love of pregnancy, the cringe-worthy question of circumcision, the demented universe of children’s literature and the challenging adventures of raising kids in the city. Branching out from his usual wheelhouse jokes involving subjects like bacon or McDonald’s hamburgers, the author’s G-rated sense of humor expands into new parental/responsible adult territory. His chaotic family life serves as the basis for this nonfiction debut, and readers can assume that he’ll reap an endless supply of comedic material from this situation for years to come. Living in a two-bedroom New York City apartment with five kids and an amazingly “fertile” wife, frumpy funnyman Gaffigan may have found, in a sense, the perfect domestic situation for a comedian trolling for new material.

Comedian Gaffigan delivers zany stories from the front lines of urban parenting.

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