# Rally Round Max Shulman, Boys! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 29, 2004, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rally-round-max-shulman-boys/252740 "2004-06-29T18:14:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2004, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rally-round-max-shulman-boys/252740/1 "2004-06-29T18:14:21Z")
Just picked up a Max Shulman omnibus at the library book sale: _Barefoot Boy With Cheek, The Feather Merchants_ and _The Zebra Derby_. Must admit I’ve never actually read Shulman (except _Irving_ Schulman, _ick-ptui_). Any fans out there? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2004, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rally-round-max-shulman-boys/252740/2 "2004-06-29T18:24:34Z")
I’m sure I’m not the only person who opened this thread expecting to read that Max Shulman had just died. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2004, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rally-round-max-shulman-boys/252740/3 "2004-06-29T19:28:52Z")
I read and enjoyed _The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis_ back when I was a teenager…as I recall, I also bought the book at a library sale, for about two bits. What’s _The Feather Merchants_ about? I thought “feather merchants” were some sort of woods goblin, out of Appalachian folklore. I’ve only come across 'em once, in a 1939 Barney Google comic strip. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2004, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rally-round-max-shulman-boys/252740/4 "2004-06-29T19:30:08Z")
Read a number of them when I was young and enjoyed them a great deal. I have wondered lately when trying to find something to read if they have held up with my aging. TV ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2004, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rally-round-max-shulman-boys/252740/5 "2004-06-29T21:12:11Z")
We did a [Dobie Gillis](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=253249) thread not long ago that talked a lot about Max Shulman. There are many fans on the Board. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2004, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rally-round-max-shulman-boys/252740/6 "2004-06-29T22:46:40Z")
> [@Ukulele Ike](#): > > What’s _The Feather Merchants_ about? According to the tattered dust jacket: BAREFOOT BOY WITH CHEEK is the satire of college life, featuring Asa Hearthrug versus the University of Minnesota. THE FEATHER MERCHANTS spotlights with laughter the civilian war effort as Sergeant Dan Miller unwillingly becomes a war hero [_hey, didn’t Preston Sturges film this one?_] In THE ZEBRA DERBY Asa Hearthrug returns from war to shove his “finely chiseled, windswept head” nose-first into postwar business, with mutually disatrous results. ---
**Author:** ![jimmmy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2004, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rally-round-max-shulman-boys/252740/7 "2004-06-30T00:13:20Z")
“They all threw their fists in the wall to show their feelings for a boy who joined no fraternity at all…” Barefoot Boy with Cheek was the first glimpse of sophisticated , sophmoric humor I had as a young boy & it didn’t matter that it was set pre-half Century in College yet – funny was funny. “Baby Duncan’s Whisteling Lung” Indeed! Thanks for the smile Eve ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2004, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rally-round-max-shulman-boys/252740/8 "2004-07-02T14:06:47Z")
Well, I have fallen in love with _Barefoot Boy with Cheek_ after reading this description of the hero’s father’s Pekinese: “She couldn’t hunt. She was no good as a watchdog. All she did all day long was lie on a chaise longue reading slim yellow French novels and eating bonbons. But when I came home at night from a hard day at the egg candlery, Anna May was always waiting, wagging her little tail and being sick on the rug.”