Peter De Vries

"Peter De Vries, the man responsible for contributing to the cultural vernacular such witticisms as "Nostalgia ain't what it used to be" and "deep down, he's shallow," was, according to Kingsley Amis, "the funniest serious writer to be found on this side of the Atlantic." But De Vries life and work were informed as much by sorrow as by laughter, and that dynamic is nowhere better seen than in The Blood of the Lamb." "The most poignant of all De Vries's novels, The Blood of the Lamb is also the most autobiographical. It traces the life of Don Wanderhope, reared in a strict Dutch Reformed home in Chicago, and follows him through family tragedy, love affairs, and, finally, his daughter's terrible illness. In a narrative that is by turns wildly comic and deeply moving, De Vries writes with a powerful blend of grief, love, wit, and rage."--BOOK JACKET.

A Novel

The Blood of the Lamb

It is 1963 in an unnamed town in North Dakota, and Anthony Thrasher is languishing for a second year in eighth grade. Prematurely sophisticated, young Anthony spends too much time reading Joyce, Eliot, and Dylan Thomas but not enough time studying the War of 1812 or obtuse triangles. A tutor is hired, and this "modern Hester Prynne" offers Anthony lessons that ultimately free him from eighth grade and situate her on the cusp of the American sexual revolution. Anthony's restless adolescent voice is perfectly suited to De Vries's blend of erudite wit and silliness—not to mention his fascination with both language and female anatomy—and it propels Slouching Towards Kalamazoo through theological debates and quandaries both dermatological and ethical, while soaring on the De Vriesian hallmark of scrambling conventional wisdom for comic effect.

Slouching Towards Kalamazoo

A magazine art editor becomes involved in the personal life of one of his cartoonists, Augie Poole, when an adoption agency requests a character reference

The Tunnel of Love

Or, The Duchess Will Be Furious

Consenting Adults

The Mackerel Plaza

Mrs. Wallop

A comedy about a man unfitted for either marriage or adultery.

Madder Music

Sauce for the Goose

Eddie Teeters is simultaneously pursued by three would-be wives and a federal agent who wants Eddie convicted on obscenity charges for his part in a series of explicit sex-counseling videotapes

The Prick of Noon

Comfort Me with Apples

Through the Leaves of Clover

A comic novel of ambition and infidelity in the suburbs by “the funniest serious writer to be found either side of the Atlantic” (Kinglsey Amis). Harking from the golden age of fiction that skewered the middle-class American dream—the school of John Updike and John Cheever—this novel by the author of Slouching Towards Kalamazoo looks with laughter upon the lawns, cocktails, and creature comforts of suburbia, as well as the antics and anxieties that lurk just beneath its manicured facade. De Vries’s classic situation comedy The Tunnel of Love follows the interactions of a socially insecure, pun-loving family man, an officious lady caseworker from an adoption agency, and a chauvinist pig—all of whom are neighbors who know far too much about one another’s private lives. In this farcical tale of marital quibbles, De Vries employs his verbal fluidity and singular gift for wordplay to offer readers “his Scarlet Letter, in which adultery leads not to a consciousness of sin and repentance but to a neurotic guilt and the delicious enjoyment it affords” (D.G. Myers, from the introduction).

Through the fields of clover

Harking from the golden age of fiction set in American suburbia—the school of John Updike and Cheever—this work from the great American humorist Peter De Vries looks with laughter upon its lawns, its cocktails, and its slightly unreal feeling of comfort. A manic epic, Reuben, Reuben is really three books in one, tied together by a 1950s suburban Connecticut setting and hyper-literate cast of characters. A corruptible chicken farmer fearful for the fate of his beloved town, a womanizing poet from Wales (Dylan Thomas in disguise), and a hapless British poet-cum-actor-and-agent all take turns as narrator, revealing different, even conflicting views. But alcoholism, sexism, small-mindedness, and calamity challenge the high spirits of De Vries’s well-read suburbanites. Noted as much for his verbal fluidity and wordplay as for his ability to see humor through pain, De Vries will delight both new readers and old in this uproarious modern masterpiece.

Reuben, Reuben

[novel]

A brilliant, fiercely funny novel that ponders the eternal question: is it better to laugh or cry? Joe Sandwich is a clown. Not literally, but what else do you call an eleven-year-old who goes to church to confess his good deeds: “I did my homework without being told”? A stockbroker who gets seasick watching the market tape and claims the gross national product is “deodorants”? A father who mows curse words into his lawn and names his son Hamilton because, well, who can resist a Ham Sandwich? Prankster, punster, cut-up, card—Joe needs to crack wise about everything. Has he figured out the secret to embracing the inherent absurdity of life, or is there some terrible anxiety at the root of his compulsion? Lots of people want to know, including his wife, Naughty, who is anything but; his mistress, Gloria Bunshaft; and her husband, Wally Hines, a humorless professor who specializes is the philosophy of humor. “If you look back,” says Joe, “you turn into a pillar of salt. If you look ahead, you turn into a pillar of society.” He prefers to live in the moment, from one gag to the next, but the joke he doesn’t see coming may get the biggest laugh of all.

Peter De Vries

About

Books

Join the club