THE FRAN LEBOWITZ READER

Lebowitz’s humorous pieces from the late ‘70s and early ‘80s are still funny, despite some dated references, and can even seem contemporary. Her voice is clear and incisive, her reading quick but not too quick, though she rushes the endings of a few sentences and swallows some words. But she seems an unpracticed reader, at times giving her own lines awkward or incorrect emphasis, and her comic timing is sometimes off. Her tone has the clipped, emphatic, mannered precision associated with nerds, such as the Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy, and her “r’s” are hard enough to crack walnuts (“literachurrrrr”). But there can be no substitute for the author’s own wry, acerbic tone in reading her own sardonic and misanthropic prose. W.M. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine [Published: DECEMBER 2012]