ALMO, Ky., April 2, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- People are often quite eclectic, if not eccentric. Jane Hallock Combs invites readers to visit a cast of true quirky characters in her new book, titled The Color Chartreuse, Etc. (now available through 1stBooks Library).
Combs presents a collection of "mostly non-fiction" essays with a "few stretchers" throw in, she notes. The reader is welcomed into a circle of odd people, like Cousin Anna Mae and Ezra, who single handedly warded off the Nazi invasion of Westchester County with a baseball bat. There is Susan Up-the Street, who dusts frogs and Cousin Phil's dog that "circumflatulates" to his heart's content. Each story brims with life, love and lots of animals. Almost all of the stories are humorous, but Combs throws in some heart warmers and tearjerkers for good measure.
Easily read individually, the stories have varied backgrounds like Combs' hometown Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., as well as Connecticut, upstate New York, Florida, where she raised her children and "the occasional rumpus," and Kentucky. Most of the essays have aired on the NPR station on WKMS in Murray, Ky. and many have appeared in newspapers in Rochester, N.Y., St, Petersburg, Fla. and Atlanta.
So dive in to this pool of eccentrics and real life people in The Color Chartreuse, Etc., where "there's usually a cat 'pussyfooting' around somewhere or 'retching quietly in a corner,'" Combs says.
Combs was born in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. and graduated from St. Lawrence University. Currently residing in Kentucky, she has raised three children and numerous animals. She taught school and founded a small educational publishing company, Longmuir/Jones Publishing.
She has written for numerous newspapers and magazines, including Yankee Magazine, Reader's Digest, The Lure of Litchfield Hills and The St. Petersburg Guide. She is the author of English: Your Second Language (Steck-Vaughn Co., 1981), Mysteries (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985), No Kidding (Longmuir/Jones, 1989), and Please Pass the Watermelon, I've Got a Headache, My Brother Dave and Cooking Runs in the Family (but not far enough), a three book literacy series published by Longmuir/Jones in 1996. She currently hosts a radio program on her local NPR station where most of the essays in this book originated.
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