The chairman of UCLA’s film- and television-writing program debuts with (what else?) the story of a hapless film student who stumbles into fortune and, eventually, modest fame. Queens-born Stuart Thomas is fleeing the Vietnam-era draft when he bursts into the University of Southern California’s Department of Cinema in August of 1966. He’s just looking for a place to hide, but he winds up with a student deferment and work on a student-made porn film. The director is gorgeous Veronica Baldwin, who cheats Stuart out of a writing credit on their surprise exploitation hit, Brutal Bad-ass Angels, then marries him. Years pass in a whirl of canned background bytes (—and that was in Gerald Ford dollars—; “by this time my Kaypro had been left at the curb and I worked on an IBM that had something called a hard drive—) and various trendy therapies whose proponents always pause, on the tantalizing verge of providing Stuart with life-altering wisdom, to say, “That’s all the time we have for today.” Another tedious running joke involves the relatively law-abiding Stuart perennially getting accosted by cops who read him his Miranda rights. Presumably the author intended the plot to be a tissue of absurdities and wanted to create characters as nutrient-deprived as L.A.’s soil—it’s a satire, after all. But a few mildly amusing episodes involving real-life movie names (Mike Ovitz, Mike Medavoy, John Milius) don—t make up for the fact that the tale of Stuart’s decline into well-paid scriptwriting anonymity while Veronica’s directing career flourishes simply doesn—t engage our interest, let alone our hearts. Walter certainly knows a lot about Hollywood—there are some very obscure in-jokes and references—but he doesn—t put it to fruitful fictional use. And starting off with a variation on Sunset Boulevard’s famously macabre opening voice-over is an invitation to damning comparisons. Not especially funny, and not much fun.
Pub Date: July 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-312-20537-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1999
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
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