Well, I'm certainly not going to beat-up on you, my friend, and I hope nobody else does. I knew when I published that book that somebody wouldn't like it, and for eight and a half years, I've wondered who wouldn't like it and why. Now I've heard your mostly honest opinion, and I appreciate it.
I say "mostly honest" because I don't think you're being honest with yourself when you ascribe certain motives to me that have never existed in my mind and had nothing whatever to do with why I wrote that book as I did. The imagined intent that you describe with " ... to hop into nearly every page to demonstrate his whit, his humor and his superior personality and jugement" comes from within your mind, not from mine.
FWIW, all the things that you deplore about my book are some of the things that many other readers have singled-out most often for their specific approval. The "whit" (wit) and humor that you deplore deserve special mention here, for the great good that they have brought to several couples. More often than I can count, readers have reported the same situation and the same result:
The husband, reading my book, chuckles or laughs. The wife asks why -- he reads aloud whatever has amused him -- the wife then has to read the book herself. "Hmm! I didn't realize there was so much, so interesting, about guns and shooting" was a common remark from the wives.
The usual result has been that the wife became a good bit more tolerant of her man's "weird" hobby. The best report that I've received came from the reader whose wife (a) read the book, (b) got interested in shooting, (c) went shooting with him, (d) got a couple of prairie dogs at long ranges, and (e) now not only has her own rifle but also joins him in every session at the loading bench. The husband told me that as a result, he and his wife had drawn closer to each other than they'd been since their marriage several years earlier. I like that!
In perspective, I'm sorry that you don't like what you don't like, but I'm not sorry that I wrote the book the way that I wrote it.
As my own editor and publisher, I wrote that book in a way that I enjoyed. For eight and a half years, all the many readers who have told me what they thought of it have been very complimentary. I was beginning to get a bit nervous about that, knowing that somebody out there wouldn't like it, for some reason or other. Thanks for settling my nerves!
