NUMBER ONE WITH A BULLET

Lots of body and soul food in a long-playing account of the record business by a former publicist who -- like Kate in this novel -- ""had discovered that Hollywood writers were commercial hacks who wrote what they were told by the front office and ran scared for the two or three years it took to burn themselves out."" But Kate comes alive again over black Daniel Stone who has made sixteen solid hits in seven years for Finest Records -- who is about to launch that Number One With a Bullet via a song called Evil, who has problems with his wife Vinetta who makes a real mess of his big club opening after he's already sung ""the shit"" out of Evil and before he's begun the new song which is already in his heart. . . . There's an orgy room and some of you may want to lock it up and throw away the key -- particularly all those who remember the earlier moons that came over the mountain, in an avoirdupois of nostalgia. If you really want to bum-rap it on a more serious basis, you really can't like anyone who's around and then there's that muthaborin' vernacular which is such a dead weight.