TOM ROBBINS. (b.1936). My father gave me my first Tom Robbins book and started a tradition of us exchanging books by the author. Robbins' style is a mix of fact and pure fantasy and often satirizes social conventions and events in history. Our favorite was always "Skinny Legs and All" which, through the humorous account of a spoon, a dirty sock and a can, describes the biblical history behind the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The personification of mundane objects recalls one of Mike Kelley's interpretations of the Freudian uncanny as inanimate objects animated to express the repressed. The last week I saw my father alive I was reading Jitterbug Perfume. Once done I passed it over to him. "It's about eternal youth and living forever" I said. He died 5 days later. |