MY WAYWARD PARENT

With sentiment that is never mawkish, with retrospective gusto, Irvin Cobb's daughter tells of her father, and necessarily of her mother and herself...This is a collection of reminiscences that has the same high humor and appreciation that marked her father's writings. Here are the young Cobbs, early married, having a hard time struggling along on the Fadu reporter's wages; there is Lollie's forcing, pleasantly, her husband to try New York, and his loneliness, hopelessness, which led to an audacious letter to the newspaper publishers, which got him a job. The importing of his wife and child -- and the beginnings of his fame. His chance to cover the last war and his personal victory over the Germans brought him permanently before the public, as did his lecturing and his books. The houses they bought -- the troubles and problems concerning ""Buff"" herself; the response of all who know him; his waning health, slow illness and death. Here is no blind adoration, but adoring with a sense of the man's distinctive individuality, his personal foibles and weaknesses, his amazing humor and vitality, his capacity for friendship, his lovableness. A sure item for Cobb fans.