A lot of my interest in Woody stems from his ear for dialogue, which is still on display in the books two plays, but you have to sift through quite a bit to get to them. He's clearly a very talented writer and I can respect a comedic endeavor that is a series of small essays and ideas to muse and play around with before dropping shortly, but I can't help but feel like he shoots at such a low percentage when it comes to the premise of a lot of the chapters of this book. Confessions of a brassy prohibition-era club owner? Pretty good. A private investigator shutting down an intellectual call-girl service? Fantastic. But for me at least, if the premise isn't solid, much of the bits don't work at all.

The play "God", is worth the price of admission alone, and it redeems a lot of the book. I don't know if I've ever enjoyed a book this much (which is to say I did enjoy it, but it's still just 'ok' to me) while breezing past so much of it.