THE VELVET KNIFE

by Irving Shulman ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

The author of The Big Brokers and The Amboy Dukes presents another indictment of Hollywood denizens which is as highly polished and slick as the world it scathingly and profusely annotates. Told in the first person by Dick Fleming, a writer who, at forty, considered himself finished, this records the rise of a different kind of villain -- Phil Hammschlager, a shy, reticent fat man who had miraculously become a successful promoter in New York through an assumed unassuming manner and an apparent selflessness which was cloying but effectively ingratiating. If Hammschlager had no obvious vices he does have a consuming passion -- for Mary Scott, the nation's most popular singer, America's symbol of all the girls next door, the girl with whom he is most unlikely to succeed. It is Phil who persuades Fleming to return to Hollywood, arranges a screenwriting contract for him, even helps him to win back his ex-wife Hilda. In his uncanny, seemingly innocent way Hammschlager manages to cause the suicide of a young actress who was distressingly in love with him, damage the career of Mary Scott's fiance and break up their romance. Having destroyed almost everyone around him he confesses his adoring love to Mary who is mesmerized by his insistence on her purity. By explicitly cataloging for him the most depraved scatalogical practices for which she craves she completely demolishes Hammschlager, drives him from her, leaving unresolved for Fleming and her friends, the reality of her descriptions. Written with the same effectiveness and professional ease as his earlier books.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1959

Categories: FICTION