Not bad as a concept, but this Hollywood roman à clef never comes to life.
From second-novelist Goebel (The Anomalies, 2003) a dull-edged satire about an entertainment conglomerate that tries to put the pain back into artists’ lives.
Foster Lipowitz, CEO of IUI/Globe-Terner—in charge of the IUI Internet company Terner Bros. Movies, Terner Bros. Music and subsidiaries, plus Globe Books—is the founder of the New Renaissance Academy of Kokomo, Indiana. His goal: “We will attempt to seek out and develop the polar opposite of the hedonistic millionaires who have been entertaining us and shaping our asinine culture. We will encourage our artist not through rewards such as money, fame, and sex, but through deprivation.” One of the first of the 457 prodigies enrolled is Vincent, born when his mother was 15 (father unknown) and named after a song by Tha Dawg Pak, which was a sampling from a NOFX song, which was a cover of the Don MacLean song about Vincent van Gogh. By seven, Vincent is one of the few dozen chosen for the “tortured artist” track. As his “manager,” he draws Harlan Eiffler, a former music critic and tedious philosophizer (“Death is huge to me”). Vincent’s sorrows multiply as Harlan poisons his dog, his mother disappears after giving birth to a brain-dead limbless baby (the result of her drug use), and Harlan burns down his house. At 16, Vincent falls in love and writes a song that’s recorded by the reigning Latin diva. Harlan pays his newfound love to leave the country, and Vincent turns out enough songs in a month for an album, including one that becomes number one in the country. Moving to California, he writes the screenplay for a successful remake of The Wizard of Oz. On his way to stardom, the suffering piles up: tuberculosis, suicide, alcoholism, syphilis. Then, at a decadent party, he meets his mother, who spills the beans about New Renaissance and Harlan.
Not bad as a concept, but this Hollywood roman à clef never comes to life.Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2004
ISBN: 1-931561-77-X
Page Count: 250
Publisher: MacAdam/Cage
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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