Nobody Better, Better Than Nobody

Nobody Better, Better Than Nobody is a collection of five extended essays that appeared in The New Yorker from 1978 to 1986. In the tradition of A. J. Liebling and Joseph Mitchell, Ian Frazier raises journalism to high literary art. His vivid stories showcase a strange and wonderful parade of American life, from portraits of Heloise, the syndicated household-hints columnist, and Jim Deren, the urban fly-fisher's guru, to small-town residents in western Kansas preparing to celebrate a historic, mutual massacre, to which they invite the Cheyenne Indians' descendants with the promise of free bowling.

Ian Frazier is the author of Great Plains, The Fish's Eye, On the Rez, Family, and Travels in Siberia, as well as Dating Your Mom, Lamentations of the Father, and The Cursing Mommy's Book of Days. A frequent contributor to The New Yorker, he lives in Montclair, New Jersey.