It Takes a Village Idiot - by Jim Mullen (Paperback)

About the Book

With self-deprecating humor, a pop culture columnist from Manhattan describes how he chucked the city routine and, dragged kicking and screaming by his had-it-with-the-city wife, leads a simple country life in a tiny Catskill Mountain town--where he couldn't have been more miserable, but the residents couldn't be happier. Illustrations.

Book Synopsis

Finalist for the 2001 Thurber Prize for American Humor a Rocky Mountain News (Denver) Best Book of the Year
Millions of people dream of abandoning the city routine for a simple country life. Jim Mullen was not one of them. He loved his Manhattan existence: parties, openings, movie screenings. He could walk to hundreds of restaurants, waste entire afternoons at the Film Forum, people-watch from his window. Then, one day, calamity.
His wife quits smoking and buys a weekend house in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York -- in a tiny town diametrically opposed to Manhattan in every way. Slowly, however, the man who once boasted, "Life is just a cab away," begins to warm to the place -- manure and compost and strangers who wave and all -- and to embrace the kind of life that once gave him the shakes.

Review Quotes

The Dallas Morning News Whether you spend your summer sipping lemonade on a porch swing or gripping a cuppa Joe on the subway, take this book along....Lighthearted and poignant.

Jonathan Yardley The Washington Post Book World Mullen is even funnier here [than in his Entertainment Weekly column].

Scott C. Yates Rocky Mountain News (Denver) A terrific blend of self-deprecating humor and trenchant observations about the funny side of life on both sides of the great urban-rural divide. Fans of Steve Martin or Dave Barry will love it.

About the Author

Jim Mullen writes the "Hot Sheet" column for Entertainment Weekly and has also written for The New York Times, New York magazine, and The Village Voice.