Tooth Imprints On a Corn Dog [Paperback]

Mark Leyner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 3, 1996

A fiendishly innovative young writer ups the ante on his cult classics Et Tu, Babe and My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist with a book so funny that it ought to be a controlled substance. "With his pumped-up prose and steroidal satire . . . You could call him the Quentin Tarantino of cult fiction."--Newsweek.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This hodgepodge of short stories, comic sketches, and one play is in the same fantastic, satirical vein as Leyner's (Et Tu, Babe) earlier fiction, with its disjointed, slapstick style, its surrealist tricks and its lusty appetite for mass culture, trendy society, low humor and high technology. Yet as Leyner reports here (in a dispatch from his "benthic pied-a-terre/atelier" in the Marianna Trench), he is now a father, and as a result much of this book concerns themes of fertility, childbirth and childcare, as well as anxieties about his new role as bourgeois breadwinner. Among these more or less fictional, often hilarious stories are accounts of Leyner's attempt to buy an Armani backpack for his daughter's Haute Barbie ($3450 at Bergdorf Goodman); his reading Rimbaud's Season in Hell to her (punctuating each line with a loud moo), and other efforts to be a good father "without losing his edge." The centerpiece is "The Making of Tooth Imprints on a Corn Dog," which recounts 36 hours spent in the Chateau Marmont, composing 1000 lines of free verse under deadline to Der Gummiknuppel ("the German equivalent to Martha Stewart Living but with more nudity and grisly crime"). These variations on Leyner's hallmark hyper-intellectual, amphetamine-feuled, narrative channel-surfing will not surprise his increasing fans; nor will they disappoint.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Leyner's last book, Et Tu, Babe (Crown, 1993), was, technically, a novel. This collection of essays, some original and some previously published in The New Yorker and the New Republic, is stylistically similar but lacks the ingenious, drop-dead-funny monologs that made Et Tu, Babe a cult classic. Nevertheless, Leyner redeems himself with pieces like "Young Bergdorf Goodman Brown," a retelling of Hawthorne's classic novella of the same title (sans the department store reference), and "Dangerous Dads," an ode to fatherhood that reads like an LSD-enhanced version of Nicholson Baker's Room Temperature (LJ 3/15/90). Leyner has a young and vocal following, so purchase wherever his earlier works circulate.
--Mark Annichiarico, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 1st Vintage Contemporaries ed edition (January 3, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679745211
• ISBN-13: 978-0679745211
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.5 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,356,132 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Give this man back his medication, August 19, 2000

By 

Kevin - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tooth Imprints On a Corn Dog (Paperback)

Leyner leaves his "teeth imprints" with the 17 stories, plays, ramblings, and dedications contained within. With his Dennis Miller-ish vocabulary, Reyner remarks on the absurdity that is prevalent in modern life.

"The Mary Poppins' Kidnapping" throws a nod to the present censoring of the media. After viewing "Mary Poppins" three teenagers kidnap an English woman so that they could have a nanny. This triggers an across the board censorship for anything from "Mary Poppins" to "The Sound Of Music" stating that it's "...irresponsible to expose young people from middle- and low-income families to films depicting ostentatious affluence." which "...has the potential for provoking very explosive antisocial behavior."

"The (Illustrated) Body Politics" exposes that senators have hidden tattoos that represent their true standings on issues. In "Oh, Brother", two Melendez type brothers kill their parents with Howitzer shells, rocket-propelled grenades and 9mm Luger rounds then plead innocent using the "imperfect self-defense" concept. Stating that since their parents were understanding, supportive, and compassionate towards them, they didn't act like other parents and were covering up a plot to kill them so they struck first.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Writing like Christopher Moore with a newly acquired thesaurus, Leyner makes you laugh, cringe, and wonder. After possibly the longest dedication in written history the fun begins. Although he loves using big words don't be scared off. Bring a dictionary (optional) and an open mind (mandatory) and enjoy.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not Really Based On "Jokes", March 16, 2000

By 

Kevin L. Nenstiel "omnivore" (Kearney, Nebraska) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tooth Imprints On A Corn Dog (Hardcover)

The reviewer who gave this book only one star seems to have been anticipating a great number of punchlines in this book. There aren't that many. The book isn't based on "jokes" as such but on wry, pithy obsevations of the world at large, seen through the lens of Leyner's sense of the absurd. If you want "jokes," there are plenty of books like that out there. This book is not for a general audience anyway -- it takes a special outlook to even appreciate this book -- but for those with the mind set to appreciate this kind of humor, while it may not be falling-down funny, it is enjoyable.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Leyner stumbles, but still brings the laughs, June 11, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Tooth Imprints On A Corn Dog (Hardcover)

Mark Leyner is, as his readers know, a master of wit, and indeed, there are moments in this book that ring with all the humor of "Et Tu, Babe" and his other previous novels. What's missing is the point. Where before Leyner tapped into ideas that nobody would have thought seriously about, (Does the title, "My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist" tell you anything?) here he is content to repeat himself. Whole sections of the book are devoted to the kind of megalomania "Et Tu" pulled off so brilliantly. Here it falls flat, and makes you seriously wonder about Leyner's state of mind. I understand he's at work on a new "novel," (this is a series of short works, like "My Cousin") and perhaps he's saving his energy for that. Still, some definite good times. Especially the piece on his wife during childbirth and a strange hunt for a Barbie handbag. Good, but not nearly good enough