Cool, Calm and Contentious by Merrill Markoe is a funny book filled with witty comments about everyday life, mothers, Christmas, virginity, and -- most hilarious to me, personally -- dogs.
Merrill has four dogs, so immediately any dog lover knows she has plenty of humorous material to mine. After discussing Cesar Milan's method of dog training, Merrill comes up with her own theories and methods.
Her chapter "selling" her (patent pending) Flexible Cohabitation is one of the funniest things I have read. Of course, you must be a dog lover to think it's even remotely funny. Non-dog-lovers will simply frown and think, "Thank God I don't have a dog!" or "There's nothing even remotely funny about this."
For example:
Q: You can't mean that you are advocating letting dogs run all higgledy-piggledy through your home?
A. To this I reply, "Obviously you have never been to my home."
The chapter includes her "very special form of Zen nonattachment to material goods, which, in these days of economic turmoil, your bank account is going to love!"
She also writes about her mother, and what a mother she was! Merrill's mother could never be bothered to praise Merrill at all -- in fact, there was always something about Merrill to criticize. After reading the chapter about her mother's travel diaries, it's easy to understand why.
Merrill's mother was a woman who wrote about St. Mark's square in Venice, "...it is one of the most remarkable squares I have ever seen. And in terrible taste. So terribly overdecorated that its very bizarreness make it almost beautiful."
On Finland, "Finland is not really the sort of country that offers a great deal to a tourist in the way of interesting places, foods, customs, architecture, music, in fact it is a most boring county."
Perhaps most telling of all is her mother's comment written on the title page of Dicken's Oliver Twist. "Not one of his better works. I was not impressed."
John Stewart of the Daily Show loved the book. Watch his interview of her -- it's pretty funny. And if you are a dog lover, you must go to her website and look at the adorable photograph of the dog. When you move the cursor over the stack of books, the dog's eyes close. At the risk of being redundant -- simply adorable!
On other pages in her site Merrill does the same thing -- looks up and down when the cursor moves -- but, honestly, she's just not as cute as the dog. Sorry, Merrill.
This review is based on the final hardcover book provided by the publisher, Villard, for review purposes.
Comments