The Florence King Reader

This book is incredibly good value. Not only does it contain extracts from all Miss King's hilarious books, Southern Ladies and Gentlemen, Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady, Reflections ina Jaundiced eye etc, but it contains the WHOLE of her wonderful novel 'When Sisterhood was in Flower' which sends up the wilder shores of Feminism so hilariously. Also there are lots of previously uncollected articles and book reviews, most of which I hadn't read before. There's even a chapter from her bodice-ripper "The Barbarian Princess" the writing of which is so amusingly described in 'Reflections in a Jaundiced Eye'. Lack of space means you won't find all your favourite passages here (for my money, the chapter 'The Sperm and I' in He:an Irreverent look at the American Male' is one of the funniest things she's ever written), but there is enough to keep any King fan happy for days. If you haven't before encountered Miss King's waspish wit and disdain for practically everyone and everything, this is a good place to start.

If you aren't familiar with Florence King, The Reader is a great place to start. Be warned, though: Ms. King is so conservative that she thinks the government's only purpose is to print the money, deliver the mail and declare war. Even so, as a moderate liberal with a sense of humor I found myself laughing out loud all by myself as I read. The exerpt from When Sisterhood Was in Flower made me laugh so hard that tears ran down my cheeks. It's too bad that novel is now out of print.

I am angry at Florence King. She hasn't written a book in years and frankly, I am tired of waiting for her next one. Since National Review put a contract out on my life for my unpaid subscription, I am not even given the pleasure of reading her splendid column in the back, which I naturally flip straight to when I can pilfer a copy from the library, who are also gunning for me. In between dodging the collection goons at NR and the shock troops from the library, I would like to have a comforted soul with the immediate purchase of Miss King's newest book, which is five years over due, by my estimation. Where is it, Miss King? This anthology is, of course, utterly delightfull and one of the rare books that lives up to every expectation built up on the dustcover. King's scrumptuous analogies and meticulous self-editing have created prose I could eat my lunch on, it is so clean and perfected. The other 'King partisan' I know told me once that people who read her inevitably end up buying all her books. As I am a man given to contrarianism, I balked at the idea and resolved not to be that dreaded monicker- a fan. I further balked when I read her editor's praise of her work in the same vein. Those are the same kinds of praises the moron teachers in my english classes in college gave John Updike for having prose I would not feed to rabid dingos. But damned if I haven't bought every book in her set. I have, against all good sense, become a thorough fan of this excellent woman's works. She is, simply put, the best prose stylist of the latter half of the twentieth century. Her works are like an elixer on the relentless nature of my hyper-modern Gen-X environment. A good hour long sit down reading of King can dispell an entire week's worth of the New York Times and two months worth of CNN. In short, buy her book. If you're here reading this review and you're wondering about the possibility of it being a good buy, stop wondering- no one with an ounce of artistic appreciation could possibly feel they had not had money well spent. And I am wailing and gnashing my teeth to say it, but you will end up buying every single one of her books. If you're the praying sort, pray for two thing- one, that Miss King will write a book real soon, and two, that the doorbell that just rang was not Bill Buckley come looking for his twenty nine dollars.

It must have been fate. I'd never heard of Florence King and just happened to find this book while browsing for something for a gift. I read the whole thing in less than 2 days. This is the funniest book I've read in ages, maybe ever. Florence King is a genius with words. The novel included in this book, "When Sisterhood was in Flower" is priceless.

But now I know that I'm not the only pro-monarchy, pro-elite, pro-Social Darwinism, feminist, smoking, beer-swilling, steak-eating, Sylvia-Plath-despising, hussy-admiring, Hillary-and-Bill-denigrating, Ambrose Bierce-quoting, pedophobic, misanthropic, English-Only-Laws-Promoting, Ph.D.-and-academic-loathing, solitude-and book-loving woman in the universe. Miss King, you are one of the few (the very, very few) current writers worth reading.