Red Beans And Rainbows

About the Book

In this comic account of his family’s misadventures during the Depression of the 1930’s, author S. L. Varnado proves the truth of Mark Twain’s observation that “the essence of comedy is tragedy.” Contending that the Depression was not the gloomy period portrayed by historians, Varnado turns the spotlight of humor on such fantastic events as the night the possum fell on his mother’s head, his father’s imaginary bouts of catatonia, his uncle’s hair breath escape from a maddened bull and the adventures of Bicycle Man, super hero extraordinaire. Integrating historical footage with comic personal narrative, Varnado creates a fresh interpretation of an important era in our history.

About the Author

A professor of English at the University of South Alabama, S. L. Varnado has written comic articles for National Review, the New Oxford Review, the National Catholic Reporter, and Reader’s Digest. He writes a humor column for the Mobile Press Register and contends that humor is the answer to most of the world’s problems. “If the Germans had had a keener sense of humor,” he says, “they would have laughed Hitler off the stage.”