2005-12-28 - 2:17 p.m. The problem with literary parodies is that, even with a brilliant premise and good intentions, it's hard to sustain the laughs over the course of a whole book. (See Chris Elliott's promising but difficult-to-finish Shroud of the Thwacker.) And the problem with "humor" books is that even if they're funny, they leave you with a sort of empty, post-candy feeling. But today I read a book that is both a brilliant literary parody and a yuk-a-minute: Park Slope's own Francis Heaney's Holy Tango, wherein he creates anagrams of authors' names, and then writes a poem or dramatic scene based on the anagram, in the manner of that author. The Robert Burns (Robber Runts) and Emily Dickinson (Skinny Domicile) ones in particular had me a-laffin'. I have a skinny Domicile� The author has also done some song parodies, downloadable on the linked site.
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