A whiny, thoroughly Jewish insider kvetch on the hopelessly crass Hollywood of Bruce Wagner, Donald Westlake, and others,...
Not about bugs that sting; instead, a bittersweet first novel from an ex-screenwriter about a Jewish ex-screenwriter in a midlife crisis who can't quite fathom why Hollywood is so Jewish and so vile.
Shortly before turning 40, Frankie Jordan, trying to finish a screenplay, is mired in writer’s block when her supremely successful Academy Award–winner screenwriter (non-Jewish) husband, Hart, decides their childless 13-year marriage isn't working out and dumps her. Frankie—Francine Fingerman before she moved from suburban Long Island to Los Angeles and became Hart's second wife—gets lunch and sympathy from her agent, Freyda. Jonathan Prince, Freyda's new 24-year-old secretary, tells Frankie he saw a movie of the week she wrote ages ago and he's her biggest fan. Frankie, grateful for any kind words, lets Jonathan, a sarcastic, good-looking, good-dressing Jewish kid also from Long Island, charm his way into her life. He helps her move to a cozy apartment owned by Herschel, a struggling playwright, and Miriam, who dotes on her husband because she thinks he's a genius. Miriam and Herschel become Frankie's surrogate parents while Jonathan becomes a surrogate brother, laughing with her at the pretentious, neurotic Jews who dominate the film industry. When her screenplay is sold to a studio and Frankie is hired to revise it (the Jewish producers think the characters are too Jewish), Jonathan serves as her secretary, finagles a promotion, and rapidly transforms himself into a Sammy Glick, sucking up to superiors, stealing story ideas, and harassing restaurant staff. He suddenly has no time for Frankie, who makes peace with her Jewish upbringing and sees in Jonathan the subject for a novel.
A whiny, thoroughly Jewish insider kvetch on the hopelessly crass Hollywood of Bruce Wagner, Donald Westlake, and others, with sharply drawn characters and a quiet compassion for the beasts who run the zoo.Pub Date: May 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-688-17464-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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