First Hubby (Signed)

Guy Fox finds his romance and marriage to Clementine Fox, vice president of the United States, irrevocably altered when the president drops dead and Clementine becomes America's first female president

Blount, well known as a country humorist with a flair for punning, has written a first novel about a country humorist with a flair for punning. Guy Fox, whose wisecrack on hearing Noriega's name is, "Have yourself a merry little isthmus," is, in 1993, married to the first female president of the U.S. He decides to write a journal/memoir about how he and Clementine Searcy Fox met, reached the White House and what some of their problems and victories have been. What he, and Blount, bring off is a sweet and randy valentine to conjugal love. Guy and Clementine and their children, Jackson and Lucy, dote on each other, despite minor complications such as Clementine's considering an abortion when she discovers she's pregnant her first year in office. At one point, Guy recalls he once thought about penning a novel, but never began the project because "I hate to get people in trouble." This confession gets to the heart of what's wrong with Blount's initial work of fiction. The pleasant but frail love story is almost overwhelmed with too-abundant puns and belch-and-barf jokes, and the plot is nearly bereft of any troubling, involving or satiric events that might alleviate the strain of Blount's relentlessly joking tone.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Blount writes in the grand tradition of such American humorists as Mark Twain and Will Rogers: he makes us laugh, sure enough, but he also makes us think about what it is we're finding so funny. This novel purports to be about the first poor guy whose wife becomes president (after the incumbent is killed by a fish), but really it's about what it takes to make a happy marriage. We expect Blount to land some side-splitting right-on-target zingers about how we live life in these United States, but he's also got some witty and knowing things to say about our lives in the marital state. There's practically a laugh a page, and like the best of American humor, there's also something to think about. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/15/90.
- Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, Mass .
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.