In 2010, the Malarkey family -- O, sublime nomenclature! -- came out with a bestselling addition to a growing Christian genre: The I Done Died an' Gone to Heaven an' It Was All Right Purty and Jeezafied an' Stuff book. The Malarkeys now admit that the whole thing was a concoction. I would have been more impressed if Dad made this admission while lighting up a big see-gar with a C-note.
Is the genre now over? For the past couple of years, I've considered coming up with a cool million by putting together my own I Done Died book.
My variant would be I Done Died an' Gone to Hell an' It Was All Dimmycrats an' Libruls. Do you think it would sell? I was thinking of writing under the name Joe "Bo" Gussman. That name isn't as perfect as "Malarkey," but one should not expect to top that which cannot be topped.
7 comments:
I think it's unfortunate that the point person for this entire episode is a young person who was only six years old when he became a quadriplegic, because if ever I'd be willing to support someone in their belief in a god and potentially a better life, it'd be under those circumstances.
The parents and all the other craven liars who parlayed this suffering child's misery into their own personal profits? They should be put in small boxes for the rest of their miserable lives.
I'm not sure this makes much difference, really. How is The Boy Who Made Up Some Stuff To Get Attention really any different from The Boy Who Hallucinated (aside from actual intent to defraud, that is)?
Didn't they make a movie out of this, as well?
Write it under the name Jeffrey Taxil just for kicks.
Yes, it would sell like crazy. In the 1980s a friend of mine, who was trying to sell a novel about drug running in the Caribbean, attended a cocktail party in New York. A publisher he met told him he could pay a $20K advance, after the usual three chapters and a summary, for a book confessing to a sinful life of sex, drugs and rock & roll, until he found Jesus and was led to the light.
When my friend objected that it would be a complete lie, the man responded that it didn't matter because the Christian fundamentalists couldn't get enough of the stuff. It was easy money. The offer wasn't taken up and as it turned out he never sold the Caribbean novel either. So it goes.
Malarkey, what else is there to say?
(grammar corner)
"I done died" - what's that tense called? who uses it? and what's its history?
I first came across it in Gil Scott-Heron's brilliant poem "Whitey on the Moon", in which the opening line is "A rat done bit my sister Nell".
Here's a film of him reading it:
[img]www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DUxzAD6RZ0[/img]www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DUxzAD6RZ0
b, if ever I knew the answer to your question, I done forgot.
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