The Zebra Derby

by Max Shulman

This rare and vintage book is a perfect addition to any bibliophile's collection

Mass Market Paperback

Published January 1, 1951

Reviews

[Clayton Roach · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has no plot. Only pointless dialogue, complex stories, and surprising punchlines. This is my kind of book! I thoroughly enjoyed getting a taste of what “humor” might’ve been in the 40s. If you’re looking for a book that will test your patience, make you laugh out loud, and leave you confused, THIS is the one. Kudos to Max Shulman, he might be the funniest Max I know.

[L. G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

- "It is true that you have been made into a killer. You have been taught cruelty."
I pulled the wings off a fly.
"But at the same time," she said, "you have learned to protect and rescue your comrades, to minister to the wounded. You have been taught compassion."
I put the wings back on the fly. -

How was this book actually quite good? I picked this up for half a dollar in a thrift shop because it was this old little book and the cover looked dumb in a funny way to me. I didn't look up what it was about and started completely blind and i have to say, this surprised me.

It follows Asa Hearthrug, a younger man that came back after serving in the war, he wants to find out what kind of gadgets and upgrades America now has after they've won the war, like plastics and such! He goes out to seek a new job and a variety of jobs and happenings ensue from selling cookie cutters to joining a communist camp.

The book has this way of setting up an entire scenario just to give you this hilariously dry punchline at the end which really worked for me. I laughed out loud multiple times. During the end it did fall a bit too much into total randomness for me, but i definitely enjoyed my time with this one.

If you're into purely dumb yet also witty humour, i actually really recommend The Zebra Derby.

[Irving Koppel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Max Shulman's "Large Economy Size" includes three of his books: "Barefoot Boy with Cheek","The Feather
Merchants,and "The Zebra Derby". These are good reading for leisure time when you need a good laugh.
They satirize just about everything from college life to the U.S.Army to door to door salesmen. It
may be that what was considered quite humorous in the late 1940's and early 1950's by today's reader.
For me it was a pleasant re-connection with the humor of my youth.

[Virginia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Max Shulman wrote short stories that developed into the Dobie Gillis tv show. This book, written in 1946, followed Asa Hearthrug, a returning GI as he tried to find work. All I can say is the more things change, the more they remain the same.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Energetic nonsense from a writer I have on a shelf with Peter De Vries because they both hit peak popularity in the '50s and '60s and lived in Westport., Conn., famed as the Athens of south-central Fairfield County. Now that I think about it, they don't actually have much else in common. De Vries could be hilarious, but his day job was at the New Yorker, and he was a specialist in highly literate tragicomedies. Shulman is more from the Dr. Kronkheit school of vaudeville sketches.

"The Zebra Derby" is sort of about a WWII veteran from Whistlestop, Minn., freshly demobilized and determined to take his place in the gleaming technological paradise to be forged by Postwar Man, as the media was apparently calling veterans in preparation for decades dispensing space-filling analyses of the Greatest Generation, Baby Boomers, Gens X, Y and Z and the Alphas. In practice, the plot is an excuse to (a) give characters names like Mayor La Hernia and Alaric and Nebbice Upcharles (OK, De Vries liked silly names too); (b) tell pointless anecdotes unrelated to the main story, such as La Hernia's encounter with a tree-worshipping constituent who has buried his scripture beneath an oak and who declares, "No man gets my vote who doesn't know his Mass from a scroll in the ground"; and (c) write scenes like the one in which the Nebbices plot strategy in a 10-words-or-less ad slogan contest.

"How's this, Alaric?" asked Nebbice. "Listen: 'I like Oxydol because it is delicious with some kind of canned or fresh fruit.'"
"That's eleven words," said Alaric. "How's this? 'I like Oxydol because of the finespun yet potent gossamer of its faerie suds.'"
"That's beautiful, Alaric," said Nebbice.

Or when the hero, Asa Hearthrug, is interrogated by a psychologist, Miss Berisha-Faertz:

"The mores of your civilian life have been stripped away; your set of values has been altered. Take your speech, for instance. You have become so used to profanity that it is now second nature to you."
"Fudge," I said. "Land o'Goshen, heck, tarnation, crim-a-nentlies."
"Not only profanity has crept into your speech," she said, "but also the peculiar jargon of the Army."
"Snafu," I said, "tarfu, fubar and weft."*
"And ... it is true that you have been made into a killer. You have been taught cruelty."
I pulled the wings off a fly.
"But at the same time," she said, "you have learned to protect and rescue your comrades, to minister to the wounded. You have been taight compassion."
I put the wings back on the fly.

The occasional drawings detract from the text. What was it with hiring lame cartoonists to illustrate humorists' stories back then? They're almost as bad as the ones in H. Allen Smith's books.

*All authentic obscene military acronyms

[Leslie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dry wit, and fantastical imagination used to portray the homecoming of a WWII Soldier, and some of the issues he encountered stepping back into civilian life. The message was good, but not fond of the "silliness" used in the writing.

[Loyd Mcintosh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Um, okay. What the heck did I just read?