COMIC GEMS WILL CAUSE LAUGHTER, INSPIRE THOUGHT
Southey’s greatest hits of past columns are sure to entertain
Tabatha Southey talks to (and for) animals and writes hilariously about everything from Stephen Harper to the ordeals of bra shopping.
Her first published comic essay, Drunk With Men, appeared in the National Post in 1999, a fact which in itself goes far to answer the perennial Canadian question, “How do we justify the existence of Conrad Black?” She went on to publish similarly irreverent and brilliant essays in Elle Canada, Maclean’s and, steadily for 11 years, the Globe and Mail, which inexplicably decided to cancel her column late last August.
But readers who had become pleasantly addicted to a weekend dose of Southey’s astringent wit need not despair. Collected Tarts and other Indelicacies, a kind of greatest hits collection of her columns, arrived on Canadian bookshelves this fall, just in time for early Christmas shopping.
Comic prose is far more difficult to pull off successfully than most people realize, and Southey’s work is not always unreservedly successful.
But she scores far more often than she misses when she aims her keen skepticism and manically skewed perspective at the events of the day.
She can find new and funny things to say about Justin Trudeau and his notorious global
hotty status, and how many of us can say that? She finds the comic motherlode on Craigslist and elaborates mini dramas featuring talking animals (and no, they are not set in the House of Commons.) Her scenes set in a bar frequented by loquacious great apes evoke Aesop after several martinis.
And no parent will read Thrilling Tales of Truly Terrible Parenting without a smile and a wince of uneasy recognition. Southey’s merciless takedowns of The Swiss Family Robinson and A Christmas Carol are priceless. Also a delight, Southey’s creation of a marvellously cranky tortoise and a committee of media savvy giant squids
While almost all of Southey’s columns are comic, she can also make a successful turn toward the serious, as demonstrated by her brilliant column about an eruption of toxic masculinity in the world of computer gaming. This book will make you laugh, and then make you think.