As Paul Theroux points out in the Introduction, S.J. Perelman "was a cheery soul who, when he flew into one of his exalted rages, seemed to have the gift of tongues". He called his stories "feuilletons". He represented himself as a "victimized clown", a "sort of boulevardier and roue who, at the moment of sexual conquest, is defeated by a wayward bedspring".

Most of this collection of articles appeared in the New Yorker, but the "Hindsight Saga" is published here for the first time. We love Perelman for his malicious humor and lunacy. Perelman writes about the real world, but he looks for and finds the bizarre. You can find here the soul of the man invited to Hollywood to write jokes for the Marx Brothers. He had a reputation among devoted friends for complicated orchestrations of fiascos.

Perelman died in 1979, at 74, perhaps the last of the writers capable of writing for the highest common denominators among the "booboisie". Few writers can insert "Bowditch", "quahogs", "shagreen", "nainsook", "oppidan", or the verb "swan" into a yarn about a jaunt around his living room. ( )

A few winners but SJ was not at the top of his game ( )