The renowned humorist fashions an affectionate portrait of his father that muses on the elliptical methods by which men raise sons and by which sons strive to please fathers. Trillin likens his father's ``messages''--indirect signals combining expectation, assumption, and wish--to a secret code. Their meanings were ambiguous to young Calvin. No fan of heart-to- hearts, Abe Trillin's most direct advice was the low-key dictum ``You might as well be a mensch.'' By turns a grocer, restaurateur, hotelkeeper, and real estate developer, Abe was indeed a mensch--a person who always does the right thing--and it's clear his messages and example transmitted a powerful moral code his son still follows. Legendarily stubborn, thrifty, and opinionated, the Russian immigrant earned a reputation for taciturnity but also possessed American optimism and a comic sense that mixed Yiddish humor with a midwesterner's self-deprecating ingenuousness. He was a man of many theories: on butchers, gin strategy, and women's dental fitness (good teeth are the key to a happy marriage), and a connoisseur of curses. Calvin's well-documented love of doggerel finds an antecedent in the verses Abe penned for the menu of his Kansas City restaurant: ``Don't sigh/eat pie.'' The writer obviously relishes Abe as card and character, but it's an amusement tempered by sobering loss at Abe's death, and by a sense of awe (heightened by his own experience with parenthood) that his father managed to pass on as much as he did. Of Abe's typically oblique support of writing as a possible vocation, Trillin wryly muses: ``Would that be how you'd steer your son toward journalism--slip the word to him casually when he's three years old and then make sure he knows how to type?'' With characteristic grace and good humor, Trillin crafts a charming, heartfelt memorial to his father that is also a loving demonstration of how deeply he took his father's advice to heart. (Author tour)

Two aspects of Trillin's affectionate, respectful, and gently funny portrait of his father stand out: one, Trillin owes his wry sense of humor and efficient prose style to his reticent but shrewd dad, Abe, and, two, only a writer with Trillin's impressive track record could get such a graceful little tome published in today's squeeze market. The first bit of business Trillin tackles is how the Trilinsky family avoided the destination of thousands of their fellow Jewish Eastern European immigrants and ended up in Galveston, Texas, instead of New York. His theory involves stubbornness, a family trait. After modifying their name to Trillin, they made their way to Kansas City, where Abe, thrifty and hardworking, managed grocery stores and restaurants and quietly steered his children toward what he believed were finer things. Trillin revels in his descriptions of his father's obstinacy, propensity for "swearing off" things such as coffee, habit of wearing yellow ties, and fondness for elaborate curses and silly names. He tells us that Abe Trillin never met a book he didn't finish and that his favorite author was O. Henry; he made sure his son knew how to type and hoped he would attend Yale. Abe did well by Calvin (called Buddy in his youth, we're pleased to know), and now the son does right by his father. (Reviewed April 1, 1996)0374208603Donna Seaman

Lest one be misled by the title into thinking that this book has something to do with the supernatural, be assured that it is no ectoplasmic romp. Having mentioned his father in Remembering Denny (LJ 3/15/93), syndicated columnist Trillin here devotes an entire book to telling the story of the "second generation grocer" who lived in St. Joseph, Missouri. Enormous skill is required to interest a reader in a person who at first sight would seem scarcely to justify full-length treatment, and loyal followers of Trillin won't be surprised to learn that he keeps his readers absorbed. With sentiment that is never mawkish, he spotlights the charms and idiosyncrasies of the man he describes as "stubborn." The book is not so much a biography as a portrait, a kind of evocative search for memories and events that have been significant in the life of Trillin fils. Recommended for most collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/15/96.]-A.J. Anderson, GSLIS, Simmons Coll., Boston (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

In his recent books Remembering Denny and Deadline Poet, Trillin included affectionate memories of his deceased father, a taciturn, stubbornly honest Kansas City grocer who wrote doggerel and planned for his son to go to Yale. This slim, charming memoir‘a good chunk already appeared in the New Yorker‘adds to that portrait. Abe Trillin, his son recalls, "did not make a strong first impression" on the world at large, but he quietly and wryly communicated bedrock values of modesty and responsibility. Abe eschewed luxury‘"[m]y father had a strong sense of enoughness." He liked to collect Yiddish curses and yellow neckties. And while young Calvin thought his Midwestern youth was as American as possible, he now recognizes the effort of his father, who came to the U.S. from Ukraine at two. The author reflects that he's followed most of his father's messages, "with just a little light editing." And, he concludes poignantly, though some might look at Abe Trillin's life and deem him unfulfilled, "I'd like to believe that he thought more in terms of... a sense of continuity." Photos not seen by PW. Author tour. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved