really good collection. my favorite here is the classic 'twirling at ole miss' by terry southern. book is a wonderful introduction to the style. ( )

First, I have to say that I don't find most of this to be black humor. Picaresque humor in may cases, perhaps, but not black humor as we normally think of it - such as the Monty Python sketch where victims of an airplane explosion are falling in someone's yard and there are so many they have to start arranging them according to the British class system...or most of The Meaning of Life.

You will need to put yourself into a 1965 frame of mind - probably an impossible task for most of us - to fully appreciate Bruce Jay Friedman's foreword, with it's many contemporary allusions. It is sometimes difficult to discern where his humor and facts diverge, but I guess that is one of the traits of black humor--although, as I said, most of this is not black humor at all.

In any case, what there is here is some very funny, very good writing. It introduced me to works I have heard about, such as The Ginger Man by J.P. Donleavy, but have never read. The excerpt from John Rechy's City of Night, for instance, is an immersive, funny/sad look at a bunch of drag queens and young male hustlers in LA's Pershing Square. The excerpt from Louis-Ferdinand Celine's Journey to the End of the Night is a very funny, paranoiac look at life onboard a ship bound for the French colonies in Africa. Joseph Heller's Milo, which doesn't say it is from Catch 22, but involves the same characters, is perhaps the closest thing to black humor here as Milo Minderbender turns World War II into his own profitable business, with everyone, including the Germans, as partners. The excerpt from John Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor, is also funny and engrossing.

Thomas Pynchon's "In Which Esther Gets a Nose Job" puts us through an excruciating, though rather educational surgery, and includes a song by the plastic surgeon. Definitely weird, but very easy to read, unlike his novels. Not completely sure how humorous it is....

Friedman's own contribution, Black Angels, is a funny look at a man, left by his wife, who obtains some very cheap help, with interesting consequences. Very entertaining, but more satire than black humor. Terry Southern contributes a piece called "Twirling at Ole Miss" which is definitely satire, and which for the most part could be the absolute truth. And there is simply no way that baton twirling, even with the backdrop of racism and violence, can be called black humor.

So don't read this for the title. If you come across it, buy it and read it for the sheer variety of stories and pleasures it contains. ( )