Review: The Feather Merchants: A Novel

The Feather Merchants: A Novel by Max Shulman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For me, Max Shulman’s “The Feather Merchants” was a trip to the past. But not the past you’d expect, given this is a satire about a WWII soldier on leave. The trip to the past for me was back to my own younger days reading National Lampoon magazine in the late 70s or early 80s. This book has the style of writing I recall from some of the Lampoon stories, and it could easily fit into the magazine. Typical of some of those stories, “The Feather Merchants” include dozens of goofy, made up names, a far-fetched story line, and a bit of a sudden ending. For this kind of heavy satire, I find less is more – I’d rather read a short story than a short novel. But this was interestingly written, and I thought worth the effort. As I’m a Dobie Gillis fan, I’ll be reading more by Shulman. Note not PC for this era, but pretty common for its time.

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