Customer Reviews

The Song of Suburbia

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Other than the author's obvious traits: wry observations, wit and wisdom, and injection of humors here and there, I enjoy reading the book because of the fact that the author often speaks for many of us (for example, what he says about the mission statement - Mission Impossible) and his words made me think (for example, when he talks about how those glossy "Country" magazines seem to take it for granted that ordinary Americans dwell in antique-filled, historic houses on hundred acre estates, in the depths of the country - Suburban Life.) This book not only brings me smiles but also helps me shape my own thoughts.

Bouchier's short essays on suburban life hit just the right note. The topics are ones with which we are all familiar - sights encountered while we walk, American holidays, garage sales, sports, vacations and lawn care - to name a few. What keeps us reading is the author's fresh obsverations on cultural events and routines that suburbanites take for granted. Bouchier's writing resonates with dry humor. These well-tuned pieces are entertaining and insightful.

An award-winning author, radio essayist for National Public Radio, scholar (in the true sense of the word), retired professor, and humorist, David Bouchier has written yet another delightful book that offers the astute reader a rare gift. With his inimitable brand of dry wit and keen insight, Bouchier skillfully satirizes all things suburban. He takes a seemingly trivial topic and turns it into a hilarious "read." What's more, he makes us look at each topic or situation in a way we never have before.

In The Song of Suburbia, the author deftly handles topics as diverse as the cacophony of lawn machines in spring, the cornucopia of vegetables in summer, and the home-alone panic without a car. Like all outstanding humorists, Bouchier does not hesitate to satirize self, and in so doing, puts himself in the same seat as the reader. Song of Suburbia is a happy melody that resonates, a suburban world that entices, an anthology that delights. Its songs will echo long after the book is closed.

Once again in an effort to be humourous about the foibles of America, an author has dragged out the tired and predictable. It's not that this work isn't occasionaly amusing, it's simply that the writing is stale and formulaic. Perhaps it's a function of his radio persona, writing to fill a certain time slot, but each essay has precisely the same rhythm and pace. It's like repetitively humming the same tune; it's tiresome at best. As for substance, Bill Bryson and many others got there first in contemporary times, and Mr. Bouchier is certainly no H.L. Mencken. The former is a pale imitation of the latter with respect to incisive observation and is vastly Mencken's inferior regarding the bon mot. I'd borrow this and other works of the author's from the library; I certainly don't recommend owning them.