Co-authored Books

Raise your hand if you would even consider reading a co-authored book. Anyone?

Generally, I won't either. They're so often examples of even more self-indulgent writing than we already get from famous authors who no longer accept editing. Sometimes you can even see the seams, if you're interested enough to dip into the book.

Okay, but I just read a co-authored book that made me laugh all the way through. It's by Jennifer Crusie, of chicklit fame, and Bob Mayer, who I hadn't read before (from the book jacket, it looks entirely possible to me that he writes those men's guilty pleasures-type books--he's a "former Green Beret"). It's entitled (unpromisingly, I thought) Agnes and the Hitman. Agnes is a cook, a cookbook author, and a newspaper columnist. Here, for your pleasure, is Agnes' newspaper column for one day; I found it the funniest piece of the whole novel:

"It's His Fault You're Fat"
Heartache often drives us to consume things we wouldn't otherwise, such as an entire pint of Caramel Pecan Perfection high-fat ice cream, covered in ganache, the crack cocaine of frozen dairy. Twelve hundred calories per pint, six hundred and eighty of which are fat calories, but it only dulls the pain for the moment, there's that carb fog while you're standing at the sink shoving it in your face, and then it's over and you feel...used. Like a cheap pickup the Dove people seduced and abandoned in your kitchen, leaving you with sticky hands and an empty cup and a still-broken heart, except now you're mad at Dove, too.

So, a nice little piece of mind candy, or perhaps mind ice cream.