The Twelve Terrors of Christmas

Two American masters team up to tickle your funny bone in this little stocking stuffer. Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist John Updike wrote the text, which, among other holiday musings, questions the motives of Santa Claus: “A man of no plausible address, with no apparent source for his considerable wealth, comes down the chimney after midnight while decent, law-abiding citizens are snug in their beds—is this not, at the least, cause for alarm?” And Updike’s jaundiced take on Christmas is perfectly complemented by the darkly humorous drawings of Edward Gorey, whose trademark anxious naifs are here beset by ubiquitous yuletide misfortune. Ho-ho-ouch!