Criticism > Short Story Criticism > Perelman, S(idney) J(oseph) - Norris W. Yates (essay date 1964)

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Norris W. Yates (essay date 1964)

SOURCE: "The Sane Psychoses of S. J. Perelman," in The American Humorist: Conscience of the Twentieth Century, Iowa State University Press, 1964, pp. 331-50.

[In the following essay, Yates characterizes Perelman's fictional narrators—types of the literary Little Man—as "sane psychotics."]

As if American fiction thrived on impending disaster, 1929, the year of the Great Crash, saw the appearance of Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel, Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, and Sinclair Lewis' Dodsworth. The production of "light" literature was no less interesting than that of "heavy." Three "first" books of humor were published by writers destined for prominence in that field: Is Sex Necessary? by Thurber and White, How to Be a Hermit by Will Cuppy, and Dawn Ginsbergh's Revenge by S. J. Perelman.

Sidney...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. The Saturday Review of Literature (review date 1937)
   2. Beatrice Sherman (review date 1943)
   3. Time (review date 1943)
   4. Eudora Welty (review date 1944)
   5. Thomas Sugrue (review date 1944)
   6. Russell Maloney (review date 1946)
   7. Harry Gilroy (review date 1949)
   8. The New York Times Book Review (review date 1950)
   9. Ted Robinson, Jr. (review date 1952)
   10. Herbert Kupferberg (review date 1955)
   11. Dorothy Parker (review date 1957)
   12. Walker Gibson (review date 1958)
   13. Eudora Welty (review dates 1958 and 1970)
   14. Michael Flanders (review date 1962)
   15. The Times Literary Supplement (review date 1962)
   16. S. J. Perelman with William Cole and George Plimpton (interview date 1963)
   17. Norris W. Yates (essay date 1964)
   18. The Times Literary Supplement (review date 1967)
   19. Richard Freedman (review date 1970)
   20. Roderick Nordell (review date 1970)
   21. Stefan Kanfer (review date 1970)
   22. Paul Theroux (review date 1976)
   23. Paul Theroux (review date 1977)
   24. Michael Wood (review date 1978)
   25. Barry Fantoni (review date 1978)
   26. Marshall Brickman (review date 1981)
   27. Terry Teachout (review date 1981)
   28. Wilfrid Sheed (review date 1981)
   29. Prudence Crowther (review date 1984)
   30. Steven H. Gale (essay date 1987)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright