“the other evening i witnessed something remarkable: known all over los angeles -- not just in the industry -- as a sparkling, tireless, and compelling sympathetic conversationalist, jerry marshall flashed us the dreamy, introspective, loving side of him that we all suspected was there but didn’t come to parties. from the acuity of his observations, we were wrong in that assessment: the quiet interior jerry does come to parties. it just hides in the corner and takes notes on the foibles of humanity while jerry the bavardeur holds forth, coaxing out the noblest and silliest parts of us. and from the sound of it, jerry has been doing this ever since he came to consciousness in a little town in the virginia piedmont, laughing and crying about himself and humankind and the recklessness of both. he’s now taken to writing down these memories and contemporary snapshots -- in diarist fashion to be sure, but often culminating in almost aesopian morals, and formatted, most unusually, as letters to his beloved grandmother, may she rest in peace. actually, if these missives get to her in the great beyond, she won’t rest at all; she’ll stay up most of the eternity reading and re-reading these touching and hilarious accounts, marveling at her grandson’s life, beaming at his wit and insight, and reassured by the evidence he gives that he and humanity both are somehow gonna muddle through.

i laughed, i cried. so did grandma. so did jerry -- whose spoken delivery of his letters, animated and insouciant, matched and enhanced their vivacity.”

peter frank
critic