When is a Book Not a Book?

My two memoirs side by side in Little Dougie's writing nook, sitting on top of a three-volume, fully-annotated edition of William Shakespeare's Complete Works and an enormous 2-volume set of Charles Dickens books, as mine are the only books yet written to top Shakespeare and Dickens. But why has my head been squeezed between Norma Desmond and Tallulah Bankhead? They are not my parents.
(Oh yes they are. - Little Dougie.)

When it's an eBook!

Glorious additional news! My new memoir, Tallyho, Tallulah!, which has been out as a trade paperback for three weeks now, has now been issued in three different e-formats: Kindle, Nook, and iBooks. The Kindle edition is available from Amazon, the Nook edition is available from Barnes & Noble, and the iBook is available from iBooks. They tell me the iBook edition can be viewed (One does not "read" iBooks, one "views" them) on iPad, iPhone, and iPod. (I thought the last was the autobiography of the head alien in Invasion of the Body Snatchers: "I, Pod".) I have no idea what any of those things are, but if you just hate actual books, you can get the eBook edition, and people will just think you're net-surfing like a normal 21st Century person.

And the eBook editions are just $3.99! You can read the funniest book written this century for less than the cost of a shot of decent vodka, or four shots of crappy vodka. (After three or four shots, the quality of vodka becomes irrelevant anyway.)

Little Dougie in his Existing Room (Well, would YOU call that "living"?), holding what he calls his "Complete Oeuvre." Notice that two of the three books are actually by ME, so he takes WAY too much credit! His decorator is clearly blind. And then we come to his eyebrows. Since Little Dougie began looking older than I do (and I'm 115), he seems to have acquired J.R Ewing's eyebrows. Did Mommy McEwan sneak around with Larry Hagman somewhat over 60 years ago? Is Dougie an heir to "Hagman Oil"?

My publishers, Electric Noggin, have also put up an official webpage for Tallyho, Tallulah! Click on it and enjoy, though when you click on About the Author, you get a few lies about Little Dougie and not one word about me. The cheek! Check it out! But do NOT go to the library, ask for Tallyho, Tallulah! and check it out. Library books are filthy, and covered with deadly germs. One touch could be fatal. Every year, millions of innocent people die from handling library books. They're more toxic than Christian Science. By your own copy. That way, when you want to reread it and reread it, you don't have to keep going back to the library and checking out the same book over and over. Leave the library for people who can't afford computers.

Little Dougie shares my new work with my biggest fan.

About those strange two words below the book title on the cover of Tallyho, Tallulah!: "A Novel." My publishers forced Little Dougie to put those words there for "legal" reasons. Sure, it's a "fictional novel," that is, if you think I am a "Fictional Character!" But I ask you, do I smell like a fictional character? If I don't exist, who is drinking this vodka? If I were a fictional character, how could I be asking you these questions? The defining characteristic of "Fictional Characters" is that they don't exist. Like Karl Rove's ethics or Michele Bachmann's sanity, they are complete myths. Well I am not a myth; I am Myth Tallulah Morehead! I'm as real as pleasure.

There could be a more-sinister reason for those words being there on my totally non-fictional second memoir. (Which rightly belongs in Chapter 41 of My Lush Life, though, at 80,000 words, it would be the longest chapter in  the book, equal in length to about two-thirds of the earlier book.) As I said, Little Dougie TOLD ME the publishers insisted on pretending that it's all a made-up story, but he may have inserted those words there himself in order to take credit for the entire book, instead of just the portions he wrote. I tell my parts of the story in a memoir I dictated as it happened, in the summer of 1974. Little Dougie added some third-person narration just to fill in my gaps, which is the first time Little Dougie has filled a lady's gap in more than 3 decades. His contribution is, at most, one-third of the book. It would be just like him, credit hog to the end.

But I assure you every word is true, except for one word on page 27, three more words on page 184, the Table of Contents, all of Chapter 12, and the Acknowledgements. (Like I'd thank other people!) Sometimes reality is just riotously funny all on its own, at least, when I'm around.

So don't delay, buy yours today! Cheers darlings.

They're not my parents. For one thing, I'm older than either of them.
(Yes, they are.- Dougie.)