Furman Bisher on Dan Jenkins

The late novels were complete recycles . . . in the fiction field, he's clearly written out.

You Gotta Play Hurt was great stuff. Unfortunately, it was the last one, at that level.

Imus is almost right. Jenkins WAS a comic genius. No shit. I'd like to have achieved a quarter of what he's turned out. Nothing lasts forever, alas. He deserves nothing but a great time, from here on out, even though he's got that Texas-mean streak in him.

 

Fast Copy is Jenkins' best work, if not as funny as some of his other books. It's a fictionalized account of real Depression-era events, and it also recounts other important events from his childhood. The attention to detail paid the inner workings of the local paper is an education in itself.

When the book first came out, I made the mistake of leaving a copy on my desk at the little five-day daily I started at right out of college. The ME, publisher and ad director all read it before I got it back. Within a couple of months, pretty much all the publisher's buddies (usually publishers themselves) had read it and the office was inundated with stories of "how things used to be done" at small-town papers.

 

Gotta Play Hurt sucked, in my opinion.
Jenkins (he wrote about himself) came off as pompous and self-centered
Abuse of company credit cards and per diems ??? Har de har de har !!! Hilarious stuff !!!
NOT.

 

: : : : :
Hypocrisy from greedy publishers, ham-handed editing from brain-dead, clueless editors and rampant conflicts of interest by the publisher's buddies.

Stop. Please stop. My sides are killing me.

Lighten up, Blitz.