MAX JAMISON

by Wilfrid Sheed ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 11, 1970

Max Jamison is the dean of American theatre critics Max--the Knife who well knows that ""the final disgrace is the writing of ingratiating reviews."" This finds him al a time when he is out of phase--with his wile who considers his professional nastiness unnecessary; with his children after he is separated from them; with the new plays and films. In fact despair is nudging discontent particularly since he has accepted a job on a news weekly magazine Now (a sellout for any highbrow's hair-shirt integrity). He attempts to salvage his soul by retaining his column in Rearview and his body with the occasional, impressionable young girl. It's not enough nor is the return lo a year of residence on a campus (a ""Hospital bed""). Here then is that intellectual middle-age spread when youthful conviction gives way to compromise and there arc the discomfiting recognitions of the sense of fraud and failure which eventually overtakes any successful achiever. Like Mr. Sheed's The Hack, it is a true to life study fashioned with style, with effortless precision and urbane trade talk, and with considerable humor. Ill or otherwise. As Max has learned, ""Better to err on the side of indulgence than miss a masterpiece."" It's not a masterpiece but don't miss it.

Pub Date: May 11, 1970

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1970

Categories: FICTION