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Last Update: 12-26-2015
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Last Update: 12-26-2015

In God We Trust All Others Pay Cash

IN GOD WE TRUST, ALL OTHERS PAY CASH (Double¬day, $4.50) is billed as a novel, but listeners to Jean Shepherd's late nighttime radio show will not be fooled. They will recognize this as a switch of the oral memoir the author has been ad-libbing beautifully for around 10 years. With the flim¬siest of fictional pretexts (a visit to his old home-town saloon), Mr. Shepherd submerges into a nonstop sequence of Midwest nostalgia. Wintertime in Hohman, Ind., back in the 1930's, when it was much colder than it will ever be again. Dish Night, Screeno and Bank Night at the Orpheum. What the secret message was on the Little Orphan Annie Decoder Pin. (It was: "Be sure to drink Oval-tine.") The department store Santa Claus ordeal. The heady flavor of The Open Road for Boys, a consciousness expander if there ever was one, Mr. Shepherd's memories lose something by being set down in cold print with nothing to hang them on - like a story.


Copyright: 1966 The New York Times

Photos:


October 23,1966

Courtesy: Gene Bergmann