Gus,

Great job on Genes page.  I hope he knows how loved he is!

Deb.

There once was a lad named Gene,

He could act, he could dance,

he can make you pee your pants,

but it's his heart that's the most wonderful thing!

Dear Gus,

Mia culpa, mia culpa!  I realized that I omitted a line in my silly submission posted above...  It was supposed to have gone like this:

There once was a lad named Gene,
with the dreamiest baby blues ever seen.
He could act, he could dance,
he could make you pee your pants.
But it's his heart that's the most wonderful thing!

Sorry about the momentary brain fart... but hey, farts are funny too!

Love & Light,
shell

Am not sure if this is the appropriate place to post a newspaper review. You can remove it if not.   All the best to you and thanks again for keeping in touch with fans through your MySpace!    ~~ Skin Bag Becky

Friday, March 23, 2007 - 12:00 AM

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Book Review
"My French Whore" | A fetching WWI romantic comedy

By Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett
Special to The Seattle Times

"My French Whore: A Love Story"
by Gene Wilder
St. Martin's Press, 192 pp., $21.95

It's unavoidable: The hero of "My French Whore" simply must be imagined as a young Gene Wilder. The talented actor who wrote this enjoyable novella, with his gift for creating humor and tenderness in unlikely situations, makes an easy transition from stage to page.

This is Wilder's first novel, coming after years of successful writing of film scripts. Just last year he also published a well-received memoir, "Kiss Me Like a Stranger: My Search for Love and Art." In this latest book, he creates Paul Peachy, a likable German-American amateur actor who leaves a moribund marriage to enlist as a soldier in World War I.

When Peachy is captured by the Germans, an unexpected surge of courage (and his fluency in the enemy's language) allows him to pose as an infamous German spy, Harry Stroller, whom he'd guarded briefly as a prisoner of war. His captors become beguiled hosts and Peachy is wined, dined — and provided with a beautiful French prostitute named Annie. Soon they are in love.

This entertaining courtship tale is simple but not fluffy. Wilder's wartime history and bits of period detail are careful, and he humanizes the characters with clever humor. As the urbane Harry waits calmly to be introduced to the Kaiser and his wife at a gala, inside he is the nervous Peachy from Milwaukee, mentally reminding himself to shake hands with him and kiss her, worrying he will mix up the gestures. "The Kaiser stuck out his hand. I shook it. (Thank goodness) and said, 'What a great honor for me.' He nodded and moved on. What a stuck-up prig."

It wouldn't do to reveal Peachy's fate, but it can be said that Wilder keeps the romance flowing and his readers believing in this improbable hero even after the curtain falls.

Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company