The Bureaucrat of Bedtime

The 'banshees' are back! C. R. Yeager's smart and sassy sequel to Breakfast At Noon: Backwards in the 'Burbs scopes out the onrushing pubertal express, his 'n hers colonoscopies, the link between thinning thatch on one's pate and in the yard, and other resonant lunacy. Illustrated by graphics genius Thomas Zahler.

C. R. Yeager's second canter through the minefield of suburban family life mixes hilarity and heart with considerable flair. Whether lamenting the loss of cuteness in adolescents ("My idea of a tweeny still conjures someone in a frilly smock on a swing reading Charlotte's Web, not little Ms. Bowflex"), deconstructing lawn jockeys ("blind spots in our racial awareness"), or assessing his family's penchant for traveling with half the house ("My wife's notion of roughing it is reading the L. L. Bean catalog in front of a gas fire"), The Bureaucrat Of Bedtime abounds with clueless candor and universal appeal. A skewed love letter to the process of being a paterfamilias in the new millennium, featuring thirteen cartoons by award-winning illustrator Thomas Zahler.

Rumored to have the inner sunshine of a solar eclipse, Greater Clevelander C. R. Yeager still finds plenty to smile about in his essays. Like his British relatives in and around Shakespeare's home town, Stratford-upon-Avon, he manages to keep calm and carry on--- well, carry on, anyway. He is aided and abetted by his wife Marsha, a communications manager, and daughter Anna, adopted from Nanchang, China, and several burgeoning felines.