I agree with the reviewer from DC. Sure, Don's work has some literary worth -- funny is what seems to be the most common accolade, as if he were Jay Leno -- and his biographer's compilation of photos and thoughts and memories may prove useful to those students of his early years. However, those who step back and analyze Helen's work from an unbiased perspective does see something Gatsbyesque in Helen's illusions of Don, the Houston scene, and how poor Don turned out. Broke and unrecognized and suffering fools. I also agree that Helen has more talent than Don ever did; she just didn't have someone to nurture and encourage her like Don did. It may be a generational thing where the men were the writers and the women the inspiration. Yeah, I guess I have to admit, maybe it is a Scott and Zelda thing too. I like the DC review very much as it shows some skill with literature and language, and was thought provoking. I bought the book because of it, even though some didn't find it helpful. What's helpful? It sold one more copy.

My personnal recommendations showed I would like Kay Graham's Personal History and this. Yes, I did enjoy Mrs. Graham's as she lived a life long after Phil rejected, , betrayed and left her (in his own way!!) But this one is really more about a woman that didn't let go, or build much of a life for herself except with members of his family and her own sisters and maybe a few Texas English profs who could remember him. I think it is sad. Maybe I will use it for my cockerspaniel. Ha. Seriously, I enjoy reading astute reviews and this is the first I've ever responded to because the reviewer seemed to have a college education and know about aliteration and Fitzgerald and Faulkner and see the irony in poor Donald's biography. It is good that his early life is memorialized, as some day someone may want to write a dissertation about him. It will come in handy, just as Nancy Milford found value in Zelda's early life. It's always good to record history. However, this is no Kay Graham book. Indeed, as lovely and loving a person as Helen is, she is no Caro -- but then Donald was no LBJ either. Anyway, its always fun to read the reviews. Some are quite intelligent, even astute and scholarly in tone, while others are just sophmoric lovefests.

This is not just a happy gloss on Barthelme's early adulthood, it is an intricate, detailed rendering of a time and place--Houston in the late 50s and early 60s. It's a story full of touching romance, heartbreak, anger, sadness, and loss. The characters here seem real and troubled, and their lives are messy, complex, derailed as often as not. Is there a clue to Barthelme's genius here? Well, sure. He was witty and ambitious and very damn clever. Funny, he was funny. His life seems to have been not quite so charmed as his work. This is a vivid portrait, complete with parts of Barthelme's life that may not have been so savory, and it humanizes this man whose work is always at pains to present only the carefully polished surface. An excellent introduction to the artist, his milieu, and his work. Ms. Moore-Barthelme writes with assurance and grace, and is always generous and forthright.

"City Life" was my intro to Barthelme. I was stunned! Who was this guy, fusing commentary on psychoanalysis and morals with allusions to American TV commercials (Brain Damage)? Rewriting the classics (The Phantom of the Opera's Friend)? Barthelme wrote from perspective of the confounded innocent, astounded by pop culture: to paraphrase from In the Tolstoy Museum, I hope something vivifying happened to him there.

Too bad "Guilty Pleasures" is outta print. No one could take our multimedia to its logical (well, illogical...) extreme like Barthelme. The parodies abound: "The Teaching of Don B." is an incisive if now outdated parody of the Carlos Castaneda novels. My favorite is "The Case of Bitsy S." A brief but utterly wicked parody of so-called scientific research articles!: if only real research papers were this short! "Snap! Snap!" is simply a litany of quotes from magazines, interspersed with some kind of motivational tirade. Very strange! Shows like Ally McBeal & Malcolm in the Middle exhibit the influence of Barthelme--interior monologue & fantasy; whether this is direct or not, I sure don't know. Apparently, some of this stuff has been published in other volumes, but you'd have to check the copyright permissions to see whether they're from "Guilty Pleasures."

The remaining chunks of the master's prose reconnoiterings are brought to light here. Essays, reviews, pieces written on assignment ... what amazes is how closely Barthelme's nonfiction resembles his classic short stories. If you already own "40 Stories" and "60 Stories" and still find yourself GASPING for more Barthelme air ... this is for you.

"Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts" is a collection of 15 short stories by Donald Barthelme. The pieces contained are as follows: "The Indian Uprising," "The Balloon," "The Newspaper Here," Robert Kennedy Saved from Drowning," "Report," "The Dolt," "The Police Band," "Edward and Pia," "A Few Moments of Sleeping and Waking," "Can We Talk," "Game," "Alice," "A Picture History of the War," "The President," and "See the Moon?". The collection as a whole is surreal, often bizarre, and often a lot of fun.

My favorites from this collection are as follows: "The Balloon," in which a giant balloon is inflated over Manhattan (this story in particular raises questions about the nature and meaning of art); "The Dolt," about a man "preparing to take the National Writers' Examination" (this one contains segments of a story-within-the-story); "The Police Band," about the hoped for "triumph of art over good sense"; "Game," a claustrophobic psychological study of two officers confined in what sounds like a missile launching site; and "See the Moon?", a warped look at parenthood and academia (this story has quite a bit of alliteration and amusing wordplay). This collection as a whole reveals Barthelme to be an inventive practitioner of the short story form.