Jules O'Bannon, a movie critic for the New York Times, was admitted to St. Luke's Hospital on Wednesday with multiple fractures after "sustaining a fall" at his home following a remark that his mother's mashed potatoes were "boorishly arbitrary" and her green beans "unpersuasive and disengaging."
O'Bannon said he suffered an accident and nothing more, but police are investigating.
Helen Reese, O'Bannon's fiance who was invited to dine with the family of four, told a different story. She said Jules O'Bannon's comment was greeted with a quick crack across his mouth, compliments of his father Stan O'Bannon, and the scene abruptly unraveled.
The stinging blow caught Jules O'Bannon unprepared and his reaction conveyed genuine "shock and resignation" while his mother Phyllis cried despite no "discernable subjectivity." Police took notes from Reese's interview, but couldn't understand what the hell the gas-bag writer-wannabe was talking about.
One family member, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that Jules O'Bannon couldn't believe his meal analysis met with "cataclysmic revulsion," particularly "the volume of spot-on haymakers."
"At work, the only repercussions are Philistinian emails or flacid phone messages that I summarily dismiss," Jules O'Bannon said through his wired jaw. "I'm not accustomed to this brand of criticism of my criticism."
A cop who overheard the remark laughed and said, "Well, pal, that's how shit get settled in Brooklyn. Maybe next time you'll think before you talk about your mom's cooking."
Reese said the incident was apparently a carryover from the holidays when Jules O'Bannon called his mother's housekeeping "terrifyingly obscure" and "paradoxically dehumanizing," causing him "post-modern discontent."
Reese also said that Stan O'Bannon told her he was "irreparably scarred" by his "roguish son's clattering misrepresentations."
When informed of Reese's comments, Stan O'Bannon said, "Enough's enough. Where's my strap. Some little chickadee's ass is going to be sore in about five seconds. Oh, and yes, this will be emancipating, authoritative, spell-binding and richly deserved."
