THE PRESIDENT IS COMING TO LUNCH

by Nan & Ivan Lyons Lyons ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 18, 1988

The authors of Someone Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe, Champagne Blues and Sold! finally go over the top with a sustained performance that is their strongest book ever. Libby's restaurant in Manhattan is the lunch stop where the biggest deals in the kingdom of glitz are cut. At Libby's, and on these pages, the cream of Hollywood chat or phone each other from table to table while rarely eating their superb little assemblies of steamed veggies or truffled pot pie or ""Red, White and Bluefish."" Celebs--such as Warren, Dustin, Woody, Liza, Meryl, and so on--come to Libby's to be seen at their ultraswank tables and to deal, not to eat their costly little food-bouquets. And then one Monday, Libby Dennis, ex-wife of that great Hollywood lover Cal Dennis (they always have sex when he comes East because they have the perfect divorce, now of 20-years standing), is told that the President is coming to lunch on Thursday. Suddenly Libby's is upside-down in a Secret Service tizzy. Deals and inter-table phonings become more frantic. And Libby is terrified that her 23-year-old gay son, who is also her maitre'd, will be revealed as the illegitimate son of the President, a fact no one but she knows. Or does Agent Birnbaum also know it? He very much seems to. And does the President himself?. Why is he coming to famed Libby's--perhaps to see his son for the first time? While we are buried under glorious gourmandizing, a whiff of melodrama hangs over the zingingly delicious chat (which grows only more sour-mouthed and stinging as the plot unfolds). Unfortunately for the Lyons, their funniest scene turns upon a death during the rash hour, as happens in Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities, which may well beat theirs into film. Instantly dated but four stars for trendiness, sheer fun, and laugh-out-loud lines.

Pub Date: March 18, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1988

Categories: FICTION