My Well Balanced Life on a Wooden Leg

Capp is best known as the creator of the long-running comic strip Li’l Abner . But he was also a columnist for the Daily News syndicate and a regular syndicated radio and TV commentator. When he died in 1979 he left a number of short prose pieces that never appeared in print. From these and a few that did, the publishers have selected 11 more of less “autobiographical” sketches–discursive, chatty, anecdotal, nostalgic stories of events (he lost a leg at the age of nine), experiences, and people. In spite of John Updike’s compact and sensible introduction, it is hard to regard the book as anything more than the publication of a literary curio that Dogpatch fans may be glad to read, but that others most likely will pass up.