THE COMEDY WRITER

Name: THE COMEDY WRITER
Author: Peter Farrelly
ISBN: 0-385-49052-6

by Peter Farrelly ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1998

A winner, nicely skewering some of the weirder elements of life in lotusland, though not as black-witted and biting as some...

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Farrelly’s droll second novel (Outside Providence, 1988) trades on his adventures as a budding screenwriter.

Farrelly co-wrote and co-directed the grossout film Dumb and Dumber and co-directed Kingpin, which also had its grossout moments—as does this. When Henry Halloran, 33, who sells space on cargo ships, is dumped by his Boston girlfriend, he quits his job and takes off for Hollywood to try his skills as a writer. Once there, his attempt to save a woman by the name of Bonnie Driscoll from jumping from a 16th-floor roof fails, but he gets an artful story out of her suicide, a piece he manages to sell to the L.A. Times. He moves into the Blue Terrace apartments, across the hall from starlet Tiffany Pittman, a blond nympho with scientifically engineered breasts, who relies on him for neighborly help but tells him that she has a rule against sex with neighbors. Then the late Bonnie’s not-entirely-sane sister Colleen shows up at Henry’s door with her suitcases, and demands that he take her in until some money she’s expecting from Japan arrives. It never does, of course, and Henry falls ever deeper into the net of Colleen’s nuttiness, as well as into an obsession about Bonnie’s big jump. Meanwhile, he shucks a script around town and lands an agent, who sends him to meet with thuggish producer Ted Bowman. Ted wants him to write a film about romance in the ’90s featuring a love-stricken serial killer. The obliging Henry comes up with the grisly "Ice Cream Man," and the sociopathic Bowman growls with joy. Henry at story’s end has experienced little success either as writer or lover—but he is, nonetheless, a sweetly sympathetic figure

A winner, nicely skewering some of the weirder elements of life in lotusland, though not as black-witted and biting as some other recent Hollywood fiction.

Pub Date: May 1, 1998

ISBN: 0-385-49052-6

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1998

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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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.