FROM THE PUBLISHER

Critic and bestselling author Joe Queenan had made a career of being vicious — then he decided to be nice. The result is a biting, hilarious tale of a very bad man's attempts to be good.

Years upon years of being unspeakably nasty to icons as diverse as Jimmy Carter, Barbra Streisand, and even Mother Nature herself had taken its toll on Joe Queenan. The man all editors turned to when they needed a book, film, or tv program savaged was tired of being so mean. He wanted to be more like Susan Sarandon. Or Sting. Determined to mend his ways, Queenan embarked on the most difficult task of his career: he decided to become a nice person.

Now available in paperback, My Goodness is the side-splitting result of Queenan's attempted transformation: from his use of animal-friendly Body Shop goods to his letter of apology to Jackie Collins after a scathing review of her latest book; from his quest to save the whales to his quest to save Linda Tripp.

Joe Queenan has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Spy, the Wall Street Journal, the New Republic, Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, and other publications. He is a contributing editor at GQ and Movieline. The author of four previous books, including the bestseller Red Lobster, White Trash, and The Blue Lagoon, he lives in Tarrytown, New York.

". . . That, as this thoroughly delightful and very smart book makes plain, is very good for the reader's mental environment." (Washington Post)

"The year's most sinfully rewarding guilty pleasure." (New York Times Book Review)

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Everyone loves a funny misanthrope: Voltaire, Mark Twain, Roseanne Barr. And combative movie critic Queenan (Red Lobster, White Trash and the Blue Lagoon) can be funny. In this memoir of attempted self-salvation, Queenan charts his attempts to drop his disputatious demeanor and become a nicer, if not better, person. As he admits, it's a hard journey, since his "financially remunerative niche as one of the handful of hired guns" who can "turn out a fast, efficient hatchet job" ostensibly hangs in the balance. He's at his best when contemplating how bad he has actually been, and when he measures the "obviously satanic people I have made fun of" against "unlikely people I have defended." His "Short History of Goodness from Jesus Christ to Sting" crackles with the gleefully barbed and insouciant tone that has made him famous as an insult-meister. But even when Queenan takes seriously his project of living more ethically, he continues to score easy points, such as making fun of the Body Shop's overly pious self-promotion. His self-mocking tone keeps the book focused on the larger subject of grappling with moral issues in a less-than-perfect world. But too often the balance is off-kilter between his riffs on the absurd commodification of self-help and liberal causes (i.e., "Practice Random Acts of Kindness" bumper stickers) and his more serious philosophical offerings. In the end, Queenan's journey doesn't quite satisfy, not because he goes back to being a slightly kinder "son of a bitch," but because those more serious aspirations get lost in all the easy humor. (Feb.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Cultural critic Queenan, who once said that attending a John Tesh concert was like staring into the jaws of hell, takes a respite from his nastiness in an attempt to rehabilitate himself. The question becomes, can he do it? Believing that all his past meanness has filled him with self-loathing, Queenan chronicles a journey toward self-regeneration. He suddenly begins practicing random acts of kindness (RAKs) and senseless acts of beauty (SABs) in an effort to achieve some level of moral goodness. Aside from occasional relapses, Queenan eventually transforms himself into a pretty decent guy. Unfortunately, the money isn't as good for a critic who's also a decent guy. Will he hang up his Habitat for Humanity utility belt, put away the Sting and Ani DiFranco CDs, and brew his last pot of St. John's wort tea? After all, being nice could land a successful curmudgeon-critic like Queenan on Skid Row. As Bob Dylan wrote, "Money doesn't talk, it swears." Recommended for popular humor collections.--Joe J. Accardi, Northeastern Illinois Univ. Lib., Chicago Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

McCall - The New York Times Book Review