Urban Scrawl: The World as Seen through the Bemused Eyes of Erika Ritter

Priscilla Galloway was an English consultant in Willowdale, Ontario.

Urban Scrawl is a collection of Erika Ritter’s commentaries from CBC Stereo Morning, along with other occasional pieces. It would probably not have been published but for the fact that its author is a fairly well-known playwright and media personality. She dedicates the book to her mother, “who made the mistake of encouraging this kind of thing.”

“This kind of thing” consists of 24 assorted sketches, ranging from juvenile to fairly sophisticated humour. In the witty but bitter “Laurie Chesterfield’s Letters to Her Sister,” Laurie extols the advantages of romance with married men, the dinners, guaranteed romantic because of the necessity of choosing dark restaurants,...not to mention the particularly exhilarating thrill of falling asleep beside a man who definitely promises to be gone by the time we wake up, taking his morning breath and day’s growth of beard with him.” But Laurie is all set to rush back to the city to be maid of honour at her sister’s wedding — and to sublet her sister’s apartment.

There is no unifying theme to this assortment, except that Ritter’s pronouncements often involve relationships between women and men. Everything from “Bicycles” and “Club Dread” (obvious puns and heavy-handed irony) to a pseudo-academic essay on “Guilt” and a postscript to Salinger, “Catcher in the Rye-and-Water” jumble together.

These pieces are ephemera. They sounded quite witty on the radio; print does most of them a disservice. Ritter, a bright woman and a fine playwright, has done her writing career no kindness with publication of this book.