Parent-child incest, strippers, heroin, cancer, and Hollywood, too. Actor and first-time novelist Miller doesn't miss a trick in this surprisingly well-written fictional memoir of a child actor adrift in the unreal world of movie-making. Himself a child actor and the son of a Playboy centerfold and Russ Meyer actress, Miller creates an alter ego, Jordan Highland, whose own mother is a successful actress—and also a former Playmate. More concerned with her son's diet than with his education, Jordan's divorced mother pushes him through his career even as it falters thanks to his excessive drug use. His real problem stems, though, from his football-coach father, a former NFL star whose parental visits since age five involve increasingly sick sex play, though Jordan is too afraid to tell anyone. At 15, Jordan's mother and grandmother play the card game of the title (characterized by its arbitrary set of rules) to determine who should have custody of the troubled teenager. His mother loses. And so, deep into drugs and keeping company with a 16-year-old stripper/dominatrix, Jordan goes to live with his grandmother, a famous Hollywood photographer (Miller's granddad was Bernard of Hollywood) who's dying of cancer. A French-Jewish refugee, the grandmother shares her grandson's pot and offers lots of candid sexual advice. Together, they travel into the Nevada desert, seek out illegal cancer drugs, and enjoy a farewell party on the Queen Mary. Hoping to bring mother and daughter together again, Jordan discovers the violent truth of his mother's conception. He also confronts his father, attempts suicide on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, and witnesses his grandmother's final breath. Despite all the over- the-top behavior, mother and son manage to become reconciled by the close. Miller's unique Hollywood pedigree—his father is the actor and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Jason Miller—must be what accounts for the authentic feel here. Even the craziest behavior seems believable in this artful re-creation of Hollywood's casual lunacy. (15 b&w photos, not seen) ($25,000 ad/promo)
Pub Date: June 4, 1997
ISBN: 0-06-039185-5
Page Count: 215
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1997
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
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The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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