Book Report: Detroit by Perrin Souvenir Company (?)

This is a little souvenir book you could pick up if you were stationed in Detroit (what will they call tourists in 2014 Detroit? The National Guard). Me, I bought it since I’m a silly sucker for picture books of Detroit (see also the review for the full-sized coffee table book Detroit).

I cannot tell from the photos really when the book was published, but they still talk about the Silverdome. Part of the book is given over to the University of Michigan campus and other nearby other cities, so the authors had some trouble coming up with enough nice in Detroit to fill up this slender volume.

I have to wonder what sort of drinking problem the copywriters for this sort of thing have. I don’t intimate that they’re probably drinking on the job to write this glowing prose when Detroit was a punchline at least as far back as 1977. A real professional can make anything sound shiny and to say that Detroit is ever-ascendant while working, but when they go home and think about what they’re reduced to writing day in, day out instead of writing the sweeping novels they’d envisioned in college, I bet they tipple till they topple. Maybe I shouldn’t mock so much professional writers who get paychecks while I’m here on the blog plan with its fifty dollars a decade salary.

I’m looking through these books nowadays with an eye for patterns and images I could burn on wood. Unfortunately, all of these are so Detroit-specific, focusing on its famous buildings, that the photos are not generic enough. I could burn one of the halls at Michigan or the Renaissance Center, but only someone from Detroit might recognize it. Instead, all I get to do is make fun of the book and Detroit. Which makes it worthwhile anyway.

Buy My Books!
Buy John Donnelly's Gold Buy The Courtship of Barbara Holt Buy Coffee House Memories