Some Instructions (American Literature Series) [Paperback]

Stanley G. Crawford (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Swiftian satire from Crawford, whose novel takes the form of an instruction manual written for his family by a neo-Victorian horticulturist.

Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Crawford's novel, which has the full title Some Instructions to My Wife Concerning the Upkeep of the House and Marriage and to My Son and Daughter Concerning the Conduct of Their Childhood, is a wicked parody of the handbooks on being virtuous cranked out by countless Victorian writers. LJ's reviewer found the idea behind the book "a master stroke of comic inventiveness" (LJ
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 177 pages
• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Pr; 2 edition (November 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0916583155
• ISBN-13: 978-0916583156
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,621,792 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The comedy of repression, May 4, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Some Instructions (American Literature Series) (Paperback)

The nameless narrator of Stanley Crawford's book has something in common with today's survivalists of Ruby Ridge and the Republic of Texas. Isolated in his hillside homestead, growing most of his own food, he would create the perfect family -- Husband, Wife, Son, and Daughter. Not at all a conventional narrative, "Some Instructions..." is his guidebook to the good life.

And what a regimented, joyless life it is. Attached to the back of every cupboard door is a list of the cupboard's contents. For his daughter, still a toddler, he has prepared a toy washing machine for doll clothes. The warmth that he must have felt for his wife, at least once, breaks through in shadowy asides and subordinate clauses.

Crawford himself is a grower (read his nonfiction "A Garlic Testament") and his narrator shows the farmer's wisdom in the chapter "Waiting."

But his narrator is pathetically trapped in his own control fantasy. By giving his son a bicycle and toy cars, he somehow expects the boy to extrapolate to driving the real thing. In his ridiculous fight to protect his children from all harm, he reveals the helplessness that every parent feels.

The joke of this book may wear a little thin, after a while. But it is a fascinating look at certain ideas carried to their logical conclusion and beyond: home schooling, living in harmony with the land, "family values." This is an interesting, scary, and peculiar book.