Customer Reviews

Tales from Comanche County

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TALES FROM COMANCHE COUNTY is a rousing, warm and funny series of yarns, spun by a pro, Max Yoho. The book is set up like a group of tall tales, which is what they really are and while Yoho occasionally wanders off the track of his tales, you can rest assured, he'll be back on track before the chapter ends. Although I favor Max's first book, THE REVIVAL and consider it one of the finest books I've ever had the pleasure of reading, TALES goes in a different direction. It is also a pleasure to read and probably should be read in short bursts (a few chapters at a time) so as to save one's aching sides. Such recommendations have followed the works of P.G. Wodehouse and Mark Twain and are certainly appropriate here.

Yoho's memories are of summers spent on the porch at his Uncle Jack and Aunt Tildy's home in rural Comanche County and listening to them spin stories, some with kernals of truth, some weaved from whole cloth and some just not to be believed. I point out the chapters detailing the invasion of the Oklahomans and their cock-eyed baseball game and the great Albanian potato famine as prime examples. There are many stories and memories that come within kissing distance of real facts and true history, but most of these are then blown wonderfully out of proportion (i.e. George Sternberg and his search for the prehistoric "fish with a fish" fossil).

I must also commend Yoho on his choice of names - Leepy Danfur, Lincoln Coosey, Deafy Himmelspiegle. These are always dead-on and incredibly appropriate. There is much to savor and enjoy in this fine volume and I hope you will read it. It is the ideal way to spend a lazy summer afternoon on the porch while drinking lemonade and pondering life's eventualities.

Bill Shaffer
Topeka, Kansas
02/21/02
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