BOY WONDER

by James Robert Baker ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 23, 1988

For its wild invention, bizarre plot twists, and tongue-in-cheek appropriation of cinematic convention, this story of ""the quintessential Hollywood wunderkind producer"" is as much a sort of gonzo Sot-Weed Factor as it is a What Makes Sammy Run? for the 80's; unfortunately, novelist/screenwriter Baker (Fuel-Injected Dreams, 1986; the paperback Adrenaline, as by ""James Dillinger"") lacks the control to pull off such a tour de force, and what has the makings of a raunchy, funny, savvy tale soon founders in its own excess. Presented as oral history (in the style of Edie), this is essentially a satire on the last 30 years of Hollywood culture. Shark Trager (equal parts Sammy Glick, Monroe Stahr, and James Dean playing Jesus) is born (in the back seat at a drive-in, of course) into a sordid 50's childhood. Fueled by monstrous ambition, Wellesian genius, more drugs than Elvis ever took, and a lifelong obsession with super-model jet-setter/bimbo Kathy Petro, Shark manipulates his scandalous way through the industry, producing movies that nicely savage Hollywood trends: from Sex Kill á Go Go (Manson á la Meyers) to Blue Light (a redemptive Spielbergian sf epic). Overflowing with references and caricature, the novel makes some dead-on calls (e.g., Hollywood's superficial Freudianism), but cheap laughs predominate (a sex-crazed donkey rampaging through the White House; a Peckinpah-esque death sequence recounted by ""Alfredo Barabbas Dillinger""), and the dosage eventually grows numbing: The references crowd one another, the caricatures broaden until their outlines disappear, and the plot becomes just plain silly. A Heaven's Gate of a novel: Far too much of what might have been a very good thing.

Pub Date: Aug. 23, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: New American Library

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1988

Categories: FICTION