cover image All Abt Man

All Abt Man

Frank Gannon. Longstreet Press, $17.95 (131pp) ISBN 978-1-56352-097-6

Essentially a gag writer rather than a humorist, Gannon ( Yo, Poe! ) is an excellent gag writer indeed, literate and quick to lead readers onto a rug and then to pull it out from under them. His principal comic devices are the non sequitur and the anachronism in this book about MAN (capitalized throughout and opposed to WOMAN, ``his fellow creature on the planet whom he has been neglecting lately''). Gannon opines, for example, that if younger Americans looked at Stonehenge once in a while, we wouldn't be having all these problems with drugs and sexual intercourse. He further reports that the ``dancing fish'' of West Coast Indian legend were really turned on by the big band sound of Benny Goodman. In covering all the aspects of MAN's history--from his origins through sex, territoriality and mythology to the end of MAN--Gannon also includes some parodies of literary figures such as Ian Fleming, Hemingway and what he calls the ``dot-dot-dot'' school. All in all, it's a funny book, best read piecemeal. (Oct.)