Perelman Tonight: A self-introduction and Part 1 of "Strictly from Hunger"

"During much of that epoch, I gained my livelihood writing for the silver screen, an occupation which, like herding swine, makes the vocabulary pungent but contributes little to one's prose style."

-- from the author's introduction to Part I
of The Most of S. J. Perelman (1958)

by Ken

S. J. (Sid) Perelman (1904-1979) has been conspicuously missing from this series, but no slight was intended. There's just such an enormous volume of work, and honestly it's been so long since I was immersed in it, that I really dreaded figuring out where to jump in.

Finally I came up with the idea of taking advantage of the 1958 anthology The Most of S. J. Perelman, which is grouped by chronological era, with each part having a brief introduction by the author. So tonight we're going to have the introduction to the first part, which covers the years 1930-44, and then the first part of a story called "Strictly from Hunger," whose relevance should become obvious from the introduction. Then tomorrow night we'll complete "Strictly from Hunger."


FOR OUR PERELMAN INITIATION, CLICK HERE


THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, BOB AND RAY, E. B. WHITE, JEAN SHEPHERD, and PERELMAN TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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