- Two Hitlers and a Marilyn, by Adam Andrusier. Hachette, $32.99.
When I paid a farewell call on Menachem Begin, the utterly implacable but inimitably witty Prime Minister of Israel, I asked him to autograph one of his books.
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He did so, tossing The Revolt back to me with the wry comment, "do not leave this at Damascus airport".
That book, inscribed "in warm friendship", sits on the bookcase behind me.
On the same subject, my son wrote to JK Rowling before she became mega-famous.
Generously and graciously, she wrote back, commenting on his ideas for the next Harry Potter and enclosing as a bonus a signed Harry postcard, "because I'm told readers like those".
Paying good money for autographs is no more eccentric than collecting stamps, trainspotting or tracking down a 1930 penny.
That duet of autographs would now, I am told, fetch a ludicrous amount of money on the auction market.
I mention these family anecdotes only to demonstrate a nodding acquaintance with the subject of Adam Andrusier's memoir about "an autograph hunter's escape from suburbia".
Paying good money for autographs is no more eccentric than collecting stamps, trainspotting or tracking down a 1930 penny.
That hobby would become odd only if calligraphy were studied in the same foolish way as phrenology once was, as a guide to personality and intellect.
In any case, Andrusier's hobby was distinctly more mainstream than his family's dogged commitments to Israeli dancing, salacious magazines, video'ing banalities, and postcards of destroyed synagogues.
Andrusier moves the reader along briskly, from one autograph hunt to another, from Ronnie Barker to Monica Lewinsky.
His approach is partly breezy and chirpy, partly vexed and snarky.
Andrusier introduces all the different dimensions of autograph collecting: pleading letters; confected encounters; perusal of albums; haunting auctions; finding pen pals; and swapping.
He grizzles regularly, about fakes (done by machines or secretaries), apathetic subjects (Richard Gere), grumpy wives (Winnie Mandela), and mis-spelled forgeries (Ms Monroe).
One low point comes when Andrusier suggests his Salman Rushdie autograph would fetch more money were the author killed. The other concerns a deeply misguided attempt to propose to the blind Ray Charles that he sign with a cross.
Even a Hitler autograph is considered, as "appalling and self-injurious, yet also somehow quite electrifying".
At one level, this memoir is an account of growing up and moving away, acquiring independence as well as vicarious insights into a parallel universe of fame. Sadly, Andrusier's idiosyncratic treasure hunt produces more fools' gold than gems.