Relentlessly trashy and profane, name-dropping and scandal-mongering.
Veteran novelist Dann (Counting Coup, 2001, etc.) wonders how different things might have been if James Dean had survived his 1955 automobile accident.
Unfortunately, the author hasn’t so much “imagined” the actor’s post-crash life as plunked him down in a Harold Robbins–style tale of gratuitous sex, ambition, and famous people behaving badly. Already a boozer before his car crash, Dean discovers a young, mumbling Elvis Presley among his bedside visitors. He emerges from the hospital addicted to painkillers and internationally famous as the star of Rebel Without a Cause. The shallow, mostly clueless Dean moves to New York City, harboring ambitions to direct films. He shrugs off his gay lovers and meets Jack Kerouac, who later writes a screenplay of On the Road for him. An earlier screenplay about Billy the Kid has Dean and director Nick Ray dickering with Colonel Tom Parker over Presley’s participation; in the first of a very few amusing turns, Elvis agrees to star because he wants to be taken seriously as an actor. (A scene of Dean and Elvis racing slot car replicas of the vehicles they previously trashed is one of the other all-too-rare gems sparkling amidst the dross.) Dann is so eager to pile on the sex ’n’ sleaze that he never lets us see Dean doing what we're told he does best: act in films. While defending Marilyn Monroe from an abusive Joe DiMaggio, Dean decks Frank Sinatra at Chasen’s. Marilyn leads him to Bobby Kennedy, who wants Dean to make a movie about him. Dean can’t prevent Monroe’s suicide and suspects Bobby Kennedy might have had something to do with it. He acquires her secret diary, only to have it pried from his grasp by Bobby. The two work out a truce, brokered by Ethel, providing an entry for Dean into politics. The arbitrary climax hints that the brooding Byron from Indiana could have beaten the Kennedys at their own game.
Relentlessly trashy and profane, name-dropping and scandal-mongering.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-380-97839-3
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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