Guilty Pleasures

First Edition.
Guilty Pleasures is Donald Barthelme’s first book of non-fiction, and consists of parodies, political satire, and fables.
“The pieces in this book were written,” the author says, “on all sorts of occasions and in response to all sorts of stimuli and overstimuli. The first third, roughly, are parodies… A number of the pieces are political satire directed against a particular Administration. One can attempt to explain this Administration in a variety of ways, but folie deux is perhaps too optimistic, and on the other hand I do not want to believe that we get what we deserve… The other pieces have to do with having one’s coat pulled, frequently by five people in six directions.
Some are brokeback fables and some are bastard reportage and some are pretexts for the pleasure of cutting up and pasting together pictures, a secret vice gone public. Guilty pleasures are the best kind.”