A Funny Way to Run a Country: Further Memoirs of a Political Voyeur

Dean Tudor is a journalism professor at the Ryerson Polytechnical
Institute and founding editor of the CBRA.

Unlike Lynch’s earlier bestseller, You Can’t Print That (which had anecdotes about events that had happened to him), A Funny Way to Run a Country is almost entirely full of stories that happened to other people. It is an exercise in cronyism, with photographs of friends clowning around at, for example, the Parliamentary Press Gallery’s annual party.

Lynch has had a distinguished career as a reporter, a war correspondent, a foreign correspondent, a columnist, and as a commentator. His first book was interesting and proved that he could laugh at himself. This one shows a total lack of interest in anything but amusements surrounding the seamier side of life. It is also boring; in fact, it is so boring that the Hurtig publicist confused “Mike Duffy” with “Patrick Duffy.” Could the publicist have been watching a bit too much of “Dallas” instead of flogging this book?