The Baby Train and Other Lusty Urban Legends - Softcover

Brunvand, Jan Harold

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393312089 ISBN 13: 9780393312089

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1994

Synopsis

America's premier folk detective is back on the case, sniffing out those zany but dubious stories that "really happened" to a friend of your sister's boyfriend's accountant's mechanic.

Jan Harold Brunvand―''Mr. Urban Legend" [Smithsonian]―tracks the most fabulous tales making today's cocktail-party circuit and shows why those stories that sound too good to be true probably are too good to be true.

The eponymous episode―"The Baby Train"―sheds light on certain predawn activities that have linked unusually high birth rates to the whim of train schedule makers. Other stories offer a revealing peek behind the story of "The Exploding Bra," expose the embarrassing source of "The Hairdresser's Error," resurrect a "Failed Suicide" Buster Keaton would have died for, and show why adults are better off not bringing their comic book fantasies out of the closet. From "Superhero Hijinx" to "The Shocking Videotape" to "The Accidental Cannibal," The Baby Train uncovers the mysteries behind some of the bawdiest, goriest, funniest, most pyrotechnic urban legends yet.

About this title

About the Author:

Jan Harold Brunvand lives in Salt Lake City, where he is professor emeritus at the University of Utah. He is the author of numerous books, including The Vanishing Hitchhiker; The Choking Doberman; The Baby Train; Too Good to Be True; and Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Brunvand's fifth collection/analysis of ``urban legends'' (Curses! Broiled Again, 1989, etc.)--and the formula's wearing thin. As before, the industrious professor of English (University of Utah) has tracked down myriad stories that, through mass circulation, have gained the ring of truth--for instance, the title legend, in which an early morning train wakes local college students who, unable to get back to sleep, allow ``young love [to run] its natural course,'' resulting in an unusually high birth rate on campus. Brunvand discusses origins and possible variants of each legend (for example, pointing out the similarity of ``The Baby Train'' legend to the legend that birth rates soared in N.Y.C. nine months after the 1965 power blackout). It's a charming presentation, often witty, and loosely organized into categories such as ``Sex and Scandal Legends,'' ``Animal Legends,'' and so on. But few of these legends have the classicality, punch, or resonance of those covered in earlier volumes (e.g., stories like ``The Hook'' or ``The Microwaved Pet''). The well seems to be running low: One of Brunvand's ``Horrors'' legends here, about a West Virginia ``flying monster'' named ``Mothman,'' was covered extensively in John Keel's classic work of cryptozoology, The Mothman Prophecies (1975); and the author's lead-off kicker, his ``experience unique in my three decades as a folklorist: I witnessed the genesis of a legend firsthand,'' turns out to be a trifle about a waitress mistaking the words ``plan one'' for an order of ``plum wine.'' The text concludes with ``A Type-Index of Urban Legends,'' a classification grid organizing the several hundred legends that Brunvand has reported on to date. And then there's the legend about the author who, as his inspiration faltered, began to write the same book over and over again.... (Photographs and drawings--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0393312089
• ISBN 13: 9780393312089
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368