The Slightly Irregular Fire Engine (1971)

In 1972 my mother, a librarian, handed this book to me and told me she thought it was absolutely delightful—and on reading it, I agreed with her. The juxtaposition of the Victorian-engraving collages (many of which I’ve since met in Dover clip-art books, drawn directly from their original sources) and a prim, starched little Victorian girl who wanted a fire engine, of all things, tickled me to the bone. The story stuck with me well enough that some years later, when in a college literature course I had to read Barthelme’s short story Brain Damage, another story full of Victorian clip-art collages, I thought “you know, this looks like that fire engine book.” (At the time I couldn’t recall the name of the man who’d written the “fire engine book.”) Prompted by that, I went over to the co-op bookstore and tried to order a copy of The Slightly Irregular Fire Engine—even if the author hadn’t stuck with me, the title had—only to find that (1) it was written by the same man who wrote Brain Damage, and (2) it was out of print.

Getting a copy of my own had to wait another several years. While I was working as the out-of-print specialist at an independent bookstore, I searched out a copy for myself, paid $20 for it and thought it worth every penny. (These days, an early first in near-fine condition like mine is a $100-plus item. Which goes to show that even thirty-five years ago, there were small-town Texas librarians who knew the Good Stuff when they saw it.) I’m greatly pleased to find that Overlook has brought it back into print, so a new generation of children—and their parents—can enjoy Matilda’s “suburban disturbance” for themselves. ( )