Generic gags, creaky satire. Anyone who’s a fan of vintage David Letterman knows that Elliott is a comedy writer capable of...
The star of Cabin Boy and author of The Shroud of the Thwacker (2005) takes on Everest.
Still recovering from the breakup of his marriage to designer Vera Wang and obsessed with his eccentric, mountain-climbing great uncle, a sad-sack protagonist with the same name as his creator decides to climb Mount Everest. Such an expedition doesn’t come cheap, though, and the would-be explorer must convince a few celebrities of the wealthier sort to accompany him on his quest. His first recruit is an octogenarian actress named Lauren who is given to reminiscences about Humphrey Bogart. She’s a smart dame and a tough cookie, and it’s her idea to lure other celebrities with the promise of promoting their pet causes. So, a crooner named Tony joins the team so that he can increase public awareness about the scourge of homemade pasta. A sweetly idiotic ingénue named Kirsten agrees to climb as a protest against animal testing. An actor named Martin—who once played the president on TV and now cannot separate fiction from reality—convinces Chris to let him come along, and the whole thing is being filmed by a corpulent, muckraking filmmaker named Michael. Elliott seems to have two goals: One is to lampoon the memoir-as-extreme-sport genre, exemplified by the work of Jon Krakauer; the other is to spoof celebrity culture. He succeeds with neither. Parody gets stale pretty quickly, and Krakauer’s Into Thin Air is already a decade old. Jokes about an actress who did her defining work in the 1940s aren’t exactly timely, either. His take on Hollywood’s excesses and absurdities is no more knowing than that of the average Us Weekly subscriber, and his satire is considerably less entertaining than the celebrity self-sabotage delivered by TMZ.com.
Generic gags, creaky satire. Anyone who’s a fan of vintage David Letterman knows that Elliott is a comedy writer capable of strange delights, but none of his weird gifts are on display here.Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-60286-007-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Weinstein Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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