"Is it true you're going out West to marry a moose?" he demanded. Then, she recalls, he began "cursing," and spreading lies. With a straight face, Grizzard regaled bar mates at the Creekside Cafe here with a bittersweet tale that he'd paid for plastic surgery to upgrade her figure and that now some stranger named [Fred Schmook] was reaping the rewards.

Then [Kathy Grizzard Schmook] (Mrs. Fred) Schmook exacted a sort of double-barreled revenge: She debuted on the literary trail last year with her first book, "How to Tame a Wild Bore," a smooch-and-tell about her life as the third Mrs. Grizzard.

Meanwhile, Grizzard's career was taking off, with humor books on the New York Times' best-seller lists and his column in almost 400 papers. It was only after a neighbor in Montana asked her if she'd heard of some Atlanta comedian named Grizzard that, fuming for humorous revenge, she hit the typewriter. Bingo, book No. 1, then book No. 2.