BRIEFLY NOTED:

_Ira Fistell's Mark Twain: Three Encounters_.  By Ira Fistell. Xlibris
Corporation, 2012.  Softcover. ISBN 978-1-4691-7870-7. $23.99.  A
former long-time radio and TV personality well known in Los Angeles
for his interest in Mark Twain, Ira Fistell credits Charles Neider's
1985 book,  _Papa: An Intimate Biography of Mark Twain by Susy
Clemens_ as the creative spark behind his new book, in which he
describes himself as a "devoted amateur" in Mark Twain studies (p.
viii). That is a pose he sustains throughout his entire book. Fistell
does not reveal exactly when he wrote his book, but most of it has the
appearance of having been composed before 1995. Its bibliography and
footnotes cite nothing published since 1992--except a single 1994
newspaper article--and no authoritative texts of Mark Twain's major
works published at any time.  Apart from remarks in a chapter about
modern Hannibal, the text is generally oblivious to events and
scholarly developments of the past two decades.

_Mark Twain: Three Encounters_ comprises three major sections. The
first contains Fistell's critical analyses of several major Mark Twain
works. Perhaps the book's most interesting section, this part offers
some novel theories, such as the idea that Mark Twain wrote _A
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court_ as a satire on America
under President Chester A. Arthur's administration (1881-85). The
second section describes Fistell's personal reactions to the various
Mark Twain sites he visited over what appears to have been a very long
time. This section pays little attention to recent developments at
most of the sites.

The third section of Fistell's book is certain to become the most
controversial portion. Here Fistell theorizes that Mark Twain may have
had an "incestuous" relationship with his daughter Susy that helps
explain the persona of guilt that characterized his last years. This
argument is diluted by Fistell's vagueness on the precise nature of
that father-daughter sexual relationship, which he admits may not have
been physical.  Moreover, he calls his theory "dime store psychology,
resting on the flimsiest of evidence and the most imaginative of
surmises" (p. 302). He even goes further: "There is, of course, no
evidence at all to support this surmise.  In its absence, I have
fallen back on creative imagination ..." (p. 309).

One error is important to note only because it is prominently used to
advance Fistell's unfounded theories. After Susy's death Mark Twain
wrote comparing his loss to that of Aaron Burr who had lost his own
daughter Theodosia in 1812. Fistell asserts that Twain almost
certainly knew that Burr had been accused of incest with Theodosia.
However, there is no evidence such an accusation against Burr was made
in Mark Twain's lifetime. In 1973 Gore Vidal created the accusation
against Burr as a plot device in his novel _Burr_, a work of fiction
based on history.