The Specialist

In a second-hand bookshop, some years back, I came across a really interesting book called The Specialist by Charles Sale. It’s a short monologue by the specialist of the title – a carpenter named Lem Putt, whose speciality is building outhouses in Urbana, Illinois in the early part of last century.

It was apparently very popular at the time and Sale himself was a successful vaudevillian and actor but what initially attracted me to it were the lovely linocut illustrations by William Kermode.

It’s a lovely little book, warm, witty and wise, with some very handy hints on outhouse construction should the need arise…