This enjoyable yet not entirely satisfying story will leave readers wanting to know more as they consider the line between...
In this mostly fictionalized account, O’Melveny (Extramarital, 2011) provides the backstory of a recently discovered, long-lost manuscript that provides intimate details of the last days in the life of Marilyn Monroe.
The prologue of Volume 1 introduces Marilyn on the night before her death as she prepares to be wed, once again, to the love of her life, Joe DiMaggio. She’s in a pensive but cheerful mood, and she’s grateful for this second chance at building a life with DiMaggio. From there, a series of dated vignettes draw the reader into Marilyn’s inner circle of celebrities, power brokers and politicians. As many who knew her have affirmed, she is not the ditzy blonde bombshell that was her public persona. Through bits and pieces of dialogue, Monroe’s inner conflict—her desire to remain Norma Jean while fulfilling her obligation to be the celebrity goddess everyone expects—is revealed in short, often unsatisfying glimpses. The book is full of allusions, teasers and suggestions meant to titillate one’s curiosity not only about Marilyn, but about the powerful men who populate her life. President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy are featured prominently in a parallel storyline involving the mob, Frank Sinatra and Fidel Castro. These plotlines will most likely intersect at some point in a future volume, although it’s not clear when or how. While O’Melveny’s account of Marilyn’s final year isn’t in-depth or even wholly true, the dialogue is very well written. Giving voice to public icons is no easy task, but O’Melveny’s lines ring true, lending an air of credibility to every word spoken.
This enjoyable yet not entirely satisfying story will leave readers wanting to know more as they consider the line between fact and fiction.Pub Date: June 1, 2012
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 220
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A book about triumphing over obstacles, and obstacles, and obstacles, and more obstacles.
An aimless young man decides to get his life together, but life has other plans.
Mike Muñoz doesn’t quite know what he wants out of life, but he knows he deserves better than what he’s got now: a terrible job cutting lawns, a truck that barely runs, and a tiny house packed with a disabled brother, an exhausted mother, and his mother’s broke boyfriend who likes to watch porn in the living room while jamming on his bass guitar. Soon enough, however, he doesn’t even have the job or the truck, and, in an ill-fated attempt to guilt-trip his mom into kicking out her boyfriend, Mike takes up residence in a shed in the backyard. Despite the steady stream of bad luck and worse decisions, Evison (This Is Your Life Harriet Chance, 2015, etc.) brings genuine humor to Mike's trials and tribulations. The writing is razor-sharp, and Evison has an unerring eye for the small details that snap a scene or a character into focus. The first-person narration turns Mike into a living, breathing person, and the reader can’t help but get pulled into his worldview. “After all, most of us are mowing someone else’s lawn, one way or another, and most of us can’t afford to travel the world or live in New York City. Most of us feel like the world is giving us a big fat middle finger when it’s not kicking us in the face with a steel-toed boot. And most of us feel powerless. Motivated but powerless.” The novel has a light tone and is laugh-out-loud funny at times, but at a certain point, Mike's trials and tribulations move from comically frustrating to just frustrating. With so much going wrong for him, the reader can expect that the universe will smile on Mike eventually, but there’s only so many sick family members, unpaid bills, bad jobs, awkward situations, and thwarted plans a character can suffer through. We root for Mike while also wishing we didn’t have to root so hard.
A book about triumphing over obstacles, and obstacles, and obstacles, and more obstacles.Pub Date: April 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-61620-262-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
SEEN & HEARD
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
There’s nothing romantic about Joe’s preoccupation with Beck, but Kepnes puts the reader so deep into his head that...
An impending sense of dread hangs over Kepnes’ cleverly claustrophobic debut, in which love takes on a whole new meaning.
Told from the perspective of Joe Goldberg, a seemingly normal Manhattan bookstore employee, the narrative is structured like a long monologue to the titular “you”: a young woman, Guinevere Beck, who becomes the object of Joe’s obsessive affection. They meet casually enough at the bookstore, and since she’s an aspiring writer just starting an MFA program, they bond over literature. Seems innocuous enough, even sweet, until we learn just how far Joe will go to make Beck—her preferred name—his own. Kepnes makes keen use of modern technology to chronicle Joe and Beck’s “courtship”: He not only stalks her on Twitter, but hacks into her email account and, after casually lifting her cellphone, monitors her text messages. In Joe’s mind, he’s keeping Beck safe from what he perceives as dangers in her life, particularly the clingy, wealthy Peach Salinger (yes, a relative of that Salinger); Beck’s hard-partying ex, Benji; and her therapist, the smooth-talking Dr. Nicky. When Joe and Beck finally, inevitably get together, it only serves to ratchet up Joe’s predatory, possessive instincts. Every text is analyzed as if it were the German Enigma Code, and every email is parsed and mined for secret meaning. There’s little doubt that the relationship is doomed, but Kepnes keeps the reader guessing on just how everything will implode.
There’s nothing romantic about Joe’s preoccupation with Beck, but Kepnes puts the reader so deep into his head that delusions approach reality.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2014
ISBN: 9781476785592
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Emily Bestler/Atria
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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