by Moe Zilla

Created on: March 19, 2009

There's a tragic story behind "The Jester has Lost His Jingle." David Saltzman wrote it at the age of 22 during his senior year at Yale - then died of Hodgkin's disease. 62-year-old Maurice Sendak contributed an afterward to the book, paying tribute to the talented young man. In the last year of his life, Saltzman had even recorded a journal of private thoughts. "The best we can do is live life," he'd written, "enjoy it and know it is meant to be enjoyed."

Saltzman's story hangs over the book, which became a best-seller - posthumously. It lends an odd context to his tale of the one cheerful man in the kingdom, who "played with life as you play with a toy." Saltzman had majored in both art and English, and bright colors fill his drawings, as the sun tints each stone in the turret with yellows, blue, and purples. The jester has a ventriloquist's dummy, and he dances for the king. And Saltzman tells the jester's story in a series of playful rhymes.

"There must be someone somewhere with a smile upon their face.

There must be someone cheerful in this cold and lonely place."

When the jester fails to amuse the castle, he recognizes that he needs to locate their missing sense of humor. He searches cliffsides, oceans, and eventually even a city. And suddenly the cheery children's story character is confronting a homeless man in the alley.

"It's kind of hard to laugh or joke

when you're unemployed and completely broke."

It turns out there's a real drama hidden behind the happy pictures. (Citing his "urgent, exploding talent," Sendak described the book as "brimming with promise and strength, so full of high spirits, sheer courage and humor.") On a graffiti-covered subway, a cigarette-smoking man tells the jester that "The world is not a funny place. It's filled with pain and tears." And the jester's next stop is a hospital where a girl is stricken with cancer.

"Here I lie, I have a tumor...

And you ask me where's my sense of humor?"

But the jester brings a smile to the girl's face - and then, to the entire city, as the plot lurches to a happy ending. "As the Jester ran back to the kingdom, he carried rainbows in his hand. And as people started laughing, colors spread across the land." The jester has learned that laughter hides inside everyone, buried deep within and waiting to sprout. With the author's story in mind, the book suddenly becomes a very moving experience. And it's hard not to wonder if Saltzman's jester was leaving behind one final message

"When I get sad or lonesome, or when I get depressed, that's when I sing my loudest and dance my very best."

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