The American Spectator

Reader Mail

p> MISSING FLORENCE KING br> Re: Colby Cosh's Our Florence Nightingale : /p> p>Most of today's Florence King fans do not know some of her best work, notably her (first) 1978 book, He: An Irreverent Look at the American Male . Amazon lists it as "out of stock," with "used and new" copies available starting at $37. The introduction, at about 40 pages, may be the funniest sustained writing in 20th Century American humor, as it describes King's own "Dagwood Bumstead" sexual history. (King expanded this memoir to become the later Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady .) It proceeds to an absolute evisceration of a baker's dozen American man archetypes ("The Michael Man," "William 'Bill' Flanagan," etc.). Strangely, National Review house ads for various King collections always leave this one out. br> -- Lawrence Henry

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