THE GOODBY PEOPLE

by Gavin Lambert ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 15, 1971

This has something of the scratchy allure of Joan Didion's Play It As It Lays and it takes place around the film city they both know so well which now has thinned out to the empty beaches of Malibu and tire canyons of Santa Monica. In the mist. The goodby people live anywhere/nowhere, not ""really believing the world into which they were born, just rooming there"" and trying to get farther and farther away. They are spooked by loneliness and impermanence, like Susan Ross who ""had everything and nothing"" and who tried Jung and acid and Sense Relaxation, to be found on the sands of Mendocino in her Pucci pants; or Gary who adapted himself 10 any convenient sexual relationship but was always on the move (a Woodstock scene -- a Sharon Tate tribal rendezvous); or Keelie who just waited for the face of an old forgotten movie slat to materialize before they both disappear together. . . . For all of them, ""there seemed to be an aimless, suspended promise in the air"" which is wiry the book catalyzes a special, lost, funky fascination. Certainly his best book since Inside Daisy Clover.

Pub Date: March 15, 1971

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1971

Categories: FICTION