Customer Reviews

Derby Dugan's Depression Funnies: A Novel

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Imagine a very depressed Damon Runyan. De Haven's story works best as an Oedipal love-hate story between narrator Al Br[e]ady, funny-page ghostwriter par excellence, and cartoonist Walter Geebus, a misanthrope who has long since run out of ideas but whose drawings remain one of the few things in Bready's world to believe in. Less engaging is Bready's unrequited--well, unconsummated anyway--love for Jewel, who is married to a real-life cartoon dimwit. That relationship is bittersweet, as is the narrator's love for his damaged sister, the unwilling keeper of the family secret that Bready can't admit. But it's Geebus who breathes life into the novel and into Bready--Geebus: selfish, manipulative, but capable of a sweet belated response to a young letter writer who idolized him as a boy but has since accreted layer upon layer of cynicism.

The complex relationship between the two main characters, with its friendship, love, jealousy, and competitiveness, is beautifully constructed, but the story never get tedious or maudlin. The novel has many comic moments and a few heartbreaking moments. Mr. De Haven's ending ties up all the threads in the story so deftly that it left my head spinning. A very impressive book.

I enjoyed Tom De Haven's Derby Dugan, but not to the same extent as his Funny Papers. There is more of a dark cloud over the characters in this novel. Yet, although he's no Runyon or P.G. Wodehouse, De Haven creates living characters that you don't mind spending time with.

Remember when comic strips ruled the land? Little Orpan Annie, Flash Gordon, Terry and the Pirates, Derby Dugan...what, you don't remember Derby? Feisty little Sluggo-lookalike, quick tempered, possessor of the magic wallet? Of course you don't remember; he's a fictional creation in this wonderful Depression-era novel by Tom De Haven. Narrated by Derby's writer, the novel captures the flavor of New York City when everyone was reading the funnies, and the many characters inhabiting the city were just as colorful as the strips themselves. Featuring a cover and sample strip by famous Maus creator Art Speigleman, you'll believe you're reading about a real comic strip and its authors...not just the invention of a crafty and gifted writer. A great book

i think i got kicked out because my head was derby's in a rowboat. it's night. or because i said bad things about aol. but..
ohboy ohboy. this is wonderful stuff. i wish there were a real derby dugan now, when ugliness prevails and there is no art at all in the funnies. but it's not the comics, it's the american century past and the shmoes (and shmnoos)who lived it that are so wonderful (and shmoeful), i have been reading these books backwards so am hungering for funny papers, but then i started tolkien in the middle and the books still worked. and unlike so many academics, de haven doesn't let a lot of literature get in the way of his story, yet you still can appreciate that there's some serious writing going on.