Word: bombeck
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Humorists do not cry, much, and Bombeck returned to life in Arizona without a backward look. Her children are on their own now (Bombeck gives a heartfelt "whew!" and wipes her hand across her forehead). Betsy is a computer retailer in Los Angeles; Andrew, who served in the Peace Corps in Liberia, teaches gifted students in Scottsdale, Ariz., and Matthew works at an advertising agency in Los Angeles while he writes television scripts. They all agree that family life was warm and normal, not the succession of disasters that Bombeck still thinks she brought on their heads...
...handsome new house in Paradise Valley, overlooking Phoenix, is calm now when calm is needed. There is a secretary to intercept phone calls and a maid to chase dust balls. Bombeck does not even know if there is a septic tank. Bill and Erma have separate offices, and she is in hers by 8 each morning, after walking a "killer mile" or puffing along with a videotaped exercise routine. At her desk she is all business. When she has time, she weaves twigs and bits of string into a play and says that the first act is in workable order...
...carefully chiseled way, spontaneous. Advice to imitators: to avoid marooning yourself without provisions in a trackless last paragraph, think ahead of time of your cheery ending, the gag that leaves the reader newly hopeful that joining the French Foreign Legion may not be the only answer. Bombeck is proud of never missing a deadline, and she makes a point of quoting the praise of an elderly Detroit Free
...beat," she explains; her readers would resent it. She does take risks with her writing, though she says, "You have to stand out there in your bloomers for a lot of years" before you have earned your readers' trust enough to try something radically new. Bombeck's readers have accepted a sharp departure in her latest book, Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession. Most of it is funny, the mixture of short pieces, one-liners and wry humor as usual, but there are several short, sad stories that have the quality of O. Henry's sentimental tales...
...always asked, with reference to the title of the new book, to name the oldest profession. She skips a beat, looks solemn and says, "Agriculture." It is very hard to catch her off balance. Her editor at McGraw-Hill, Gladys Justin Carr, recalls a lunch meeting in Chicago when Bombeck was publicizing her fifth book, If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?, hoping to match the previous sales of The Grass Is Always Greener over the Septic Tank. As Bombeck was about to begin her speech, a procession of waiters entered, each bearing...