Norman reviews A Mammal of Style by Ted Greenwald and Kit Robinson (Roof Books 2013):
Let’s begin with the title A Mammal of Style, which of course echoes the Chicago Manual of Style, someone’s notion of the proper and correct way of rendering sensible sentences in the English language. A manual isn’t a book you read, it’s a book you have close at hand — the word means hand, functional and straightforward. This book feels like that.
But a mammal isn’t a manual; it’s an animal. It could be a human animal, but as animals humans have no proper way of doing anything. They do what comes naturally. They live in the world, reacting to it. Grunting and grimacing, as the occasion demands. A mammal of style describes what this book is: grunts and grimaces of literary style, gestures, blunt-force interventions. Distinctly not sensible.
Norman Fischer, “Notes on 'A Mammal of Style'," Jacket2 (July 15, 2014).