52 McGs.: The Best Obituaries from Legendary New York Times Reporter Robert McG. Thomas (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Chris Calhoun (Editor)
Key Phrases: New York, World War, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A "lover of the farfetched and the overlooked," as novelist Mallon puts it in his appreciative introduction, the late New York Times reporter Robert McG. Thomas Jr. (1939-2000) developed a loyal following for quirky, witty obituaries that illuminated the lives of people not automatically destined for "the Newspaper of Record." This highly browsable collection of 52 obits shows Thomas at his deadline best. Readers meet Ted Hustead, builder of the internationally renowned South Dakota drugstore, Wall Drug, "a tourist attraction that seems famous largely for its very fame." There's also the classic hustler Minnesota Fats, about whom "the only certainty was that you could never know for sure"; Marshall Berger, "who taught generations of Noo Yawkahs how not to speak the Kings County English"; and the 1950s hipster Anton Rosenberg, who was so prototypical that "he never amounted to much of anything." Other subjects include the character actor Emil Sitka, foil of the Three Stooges; Francine Katzenbogen, a lottery millionaire who used her winnings to help cats; Maurice Sagoff, who wrote "Shrinklets," which condensed literary classics into humorous verse; and Edward Lowe, the inventor of Kitty Litter. As Michael T. Kaufman explains in the obituary of the author that closes this volume, Thomas himself had a career "more circuitous than meteoric," hence his sympathy for underachievers and late bloomers. Such sympathy reminds readers that the obituary page need not be leaden and dutiful. (Nov.)\

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Although he wrote full-time about the deceased during his last years at the New York Times, Thomas eschewed unpleasant circumstances, selecting as his subjects unsung characters who had died in unremarkable ways. His obituaries, which became known simply as McG.s, focused on such marginal celebrities as the inventor of Kitty Litter, a traveling goat man, and a champion duckpins player. From a total of 657 McG.s, literary agent and longtime fan Calhoun has selected a symbolic number. He suggests reading pieces randomly, as one would pick a card from a deck, rather than reading the collection straight through. A seasoned reporter, Thomas felt compelled to sum up each person's life and death in a single lead sentence; one wonders how some of the awkward dependent clauses survived editorial scrutiny. Nevertheless, Thomas's stylish, compassionate prose deserves a place in most journalism collections. Susan M. Colowick, North Olympic Lib. Syst., Port Angeles, WA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (October 23, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743215621
• ISBN-13: 978-0743215626
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #647,090 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Obit writing at its best, December 5, 2001

By	Robert Richmond "Texas reader" (San Antonio, Texas USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

For many years I clipped Robert McG Thomas's obits. I cannot remember a mediocre one. He had the rare ability to capture the essence of each person he wrote about. I miss his obits. This is a fine book.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Laugh out loud funny, but always respectful, January 4, 2002

By	Katie Allison Granju "[e-mail]" (Knoxville, Tennessee United States) - See all my reviews

Bob Thomas was a fine, generous, kind man with a knack for throwing a great party. He was also one of his generation's most talented observers of modern culture via his legendary NYT obits. While his posthumous descriptions of Americans both great and small are often bitingly amusing, his respect for his subjects was always palpable. It is this combination that makes his writing so uniquely fabulous.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 52 McGems, December 13, 2001

By	Kim I. Eisler "kmslr" (Bethesda, Maryland United States) - See all my reviews

There are two great experiences in newspaper reading, one if the wedding announcements in the Sunday NY Times, the other is the obituary page every day. No other paper does it the way the Times does, putting a smile on my face even as a life passes before us. The greatest NYT obituary writer of all was Robert McG. Thomas; and nobody laughed louder at his witty and ironic observations than Chris Calhoun, the famous book editor at Sterling Lord who compiled this neat deck of 52 of Thomas' wryest and wittiest obituaries. From a Jewish matordor, to the guy who buried Lee Harvey Oswald to a character whose main claim to fame was that he was the guy the three stooges stuck in the eye all the time, Its uproarious. Just a couple of examples: In an obituary of a guy who discovered a stone age tribe in the Philipines, Thomas ponders whether they were really primitives or it was all a hoax. Either way, he writes, "It was a reflection of their rapid acculturalization that in 1988 several members of the tribe filed a libel suit against anthropologists who called them fakers." That one cracked me up. So did the one about a woman who won a lottery. The real story was she loved cats and spent all her money on cats; but they she died because she was allerigic to them. Well, it was funny to me. Then there is one about a famous genealogist who ended up disproving his wife's claime to be a descendant of one of the founding fathers. That one ends with a quote from a son saying he has not interst in the topic noting, " We were victimes of genealogical overkill."

Like the subjects of the obits, this is all subtle. These are not obits of famous people, most had brushes with greatness like the skit on the Letterman show. They lucked into an invention or found a famous golf ball or became a whiz at duckpins. My only regret is that there weren't more of them. 93 McGs would have had a better ring to it. The book ends with the obituary of Thomas himself, who died in 2000 at the age of 60. It is unfortunate that the editor didn't include all of the obituaries mentioned in his obituary, since it would be natural that you want to go back and look at them after they were mentioned. But picking 52 out of a collection of nearly 700 is a tough task and Calhoun had to draw the line somewhere. and that is a minor quibble. I found myself reading them all out loud to my wife and daughter, who enjoyed them every bit as much as I did.