Breakfast At Noon

In this essay collection of midlife cares and craziness, C. R. Yeager takes us on a Tilt-A-Whirl ride of suburbia with his wife and adopted Chinese daughter. The banshees, as he calls them, provide ample opportunity for wise buffoonery, wearing 'mankiller' shoes that could "e;devour Simon Cowell,"e; playing with dolls that would frighten Godzilla, and generally diverting life into a mine shaft. En route he also turns his attention to modern inconveniences (smartass cars, feral pets) and homesteading ("e;A lunchbox has more storage than our house"e;), mortality awareness ("e;whacking you in the face like a rake you stepped on"e;), and in-laws that show up unannounced "e;as though returning from a stint in Uruguay."e; Fractious and poignant, delighting in language and deploring contingency, Breakfast At Noon: Backwards in the 'Burbs is a dim sum of sweet and sour and very, very real. Adding to the fun are ten cartoons by award-winning illustrator Thomas Zahler.