The writing is beautiful. Sally Koslow's writing is what hooked me and why I finished, despite so thoroughly disliking both Sheilah Graham and F. Scott Fitzgerald, the main characters in Another Side of Paradise.
Told from Sheilah's perspective, this novel is the story of their nearly-four year romance while Zelda was institutionalized and Scott toiled in Hollywood, earning just enough to stave off his creditors. (The Hollywood period in all its agony and glory is the focus of West of Sunset, which I preferred to Another Side of Paradise because of the former's broader focus.) To say the relationship between Sheilah and Scott was volatile would be an understatement. And so, not surprisingly, their actions are repetitive: they're together happily, Scott goes on a bender, there's an ugly fight and break-up, he begs her forgiveness, she goes back to him. The cycle is broken only by Scott's death. Ugh.
The best of Another Side of Paradise are the other chapters covering Sheilah's life before Hollywood. Born Lily Shiel in an East End slum, her father dies and mothers sends her to an institution for Jewish children. As a teenager, she meets a kindly businessman who helps her create the fiction of Sheilah Graham and sets her on a course to hobnob with the likes of the Mitfords and Randolph Churchill.
In Koslow's telling, Sheilah struggles with the lies she has told and lives in constant fear of being unmasked as a fake and am imposter. This may or may not be true. Presumably she did love Scott Fitzgerald, though God knows it's impossible to understand why. I can but give her the benefit of the doubt and assume it had to do with his writing.
When it comes to a final reckoning, unfortunately, I found both Sheilah and Scott so dislikable, but they detracted from the overall experience, and so, where I would otherwise have said this was a solid 4-star read, I'm concluding with 3 stars and feeling generous. Skip the historical fiction and go for the real stuff: The Cruise of the Rolling Junk should sate any reader looking for a taste of F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Three stars.
Showing posts with label Hollywood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hollywood. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Tuesday, January 7, 2020
City of Flickering Light
In one word: fun. Juliette Fay's tale of early Hollywood is a fun read, full of fictional characters whose personalities mesh and who bring out the best of the golden age of film...even when starring in escapades drawn from some of Hollywood's darker moments.
Irene Van Beck and Millie Martin met in a seedy burlesque show and planned their escape - from a moving train, no less - before burlesque could completely chew them up and spit them out. Troupe comedian Henry Weiss gambles on jumping after them and the trio of friends make their way to Hollywood together where Irene begins writing and Millie and Henry find work as extras. All is not peaches and cream, of course; any good story must have its sources of conflict, and this is no different, with Millie, Irene, and Henry gradually unfurling compelling backstories that ultimately bind them together in more ways than they could have anticipated when they made the literal leap.
There's no shortage of tales of Hollywood out there, but City of Flickering Light stands apart to me because of what it is not. It's not a fictionalized account of an actual person (i.e., The Girls in the Picture and Frances Marion or Louise Brooks in The Chaperone or even Loretta Young). As Fay writes in her author's note, she drew inspiration from actual events in Hollywood circa 1921 (such as the use of morphine on sets after accidents, or the accusations against Fatty Arbuckle, or, most effectively for Fay's story, the still-unsolved murder of director William Desmond Taylor), but the lack of real characters allows Fay greater leeway with her story than those other early-Hollywood offerings that rely on the comings and goings of actual people.
And, although, it's a small thing, the quotes that open each of the 47 chapters added zeitgeist to the book.
Five stars.
Irene Van Beck and Millie Martin met in a seedy burlesque show and planned their escape - from a moving train, no less - before burlesque could completely chew them up and spit them out. Troupe comedian Henry Weiss gambles on jumping after them and the trio of friends make their way to Hollywood together where Irene begins writing and Millie and Henry find work as extras. All is not peaches and cream, of course; any good story must have its sources of conflict, and this is no different, with Millie, Irene, and Henry gradually unfurling compelling backstories that ultimately bind them together in more ways than they could have anticipated when they made the literal leap.
There's no shortage of tales of Hollywood out there, but City of Flickering Light stands apart to me because of what it is not. It's not a fictionalized account of an actual person (i.e., The Girls in the Picture and Frances Marion or Louise Brooks in The Chaperone or even Loretta Young). As Fay writes in her author's note, she drew inspiration from actual events in Hollywood circa 1921 (such as the use of morphine on sets after accidents, or the accusations against Fatty Arbuckle, or, most effectively for Fay's story, the still-unsolved murder of director William Desmond Taylor), but the lack of real characters allows Fay greater leeway with her story than those other early-Hollywood offerings that rely on the comings and goings of actual people.
And, although, it's a small thing, the quotes that open each of the 47 chapters added zeitgeist to the book.
Five stars.
Wednesday, May 15, 2019
The Girls in the Picture
Melanie Benjamin strikes again! After taking on the Lindberghs, Mrs. Tom Thumb, and Truman Capote, Benjamin turned her attention to Frances Marion (like Babe Paley, I asked myself, who??) and Mary Pickford. Frances Marion, I learned, was one of the first - and best - screenwriters in Hollywood. She also happened to be one of few women to ply the trade in the early days of movie making. More inexplicably - although Benjamin certainly does her darnedest to explain it - she was best friends with Ms. Pickford (née Gladys Smith) who was, it seems, rather despicable.
As always, Benjamin has done her homework and brings her characters fully to life, their fun, fame, and flaws equally on display. Hers is a no-holds-barred style and goes a long way toward capturing her protagonists as they really were (one imagines). She did omit Pickford's children, which is perhaps understandable given that, according to Wikipedia, "Both children later said their mother was too self-absorbed to provide real maternal love. ... Ronnie recalled that "Things didn't work out that much, you know. But I'll never forget her. I think that she was a good woman."
Her topic - the golden days of Hollywood - has certainly been thoroughly mined (West of Sunset and All the Stars in the Heavens came to mind regularly), but in Frances Marion, Benjamin has found a sympathetic character whose story is likely new to her reading audience. (That said, I do live under a pretty big rock, pop culture-wise, so maybe I've just revealed myself as a complete ignoramus.) On occasion, some of Fran's thoughts seemed forced, or overly filtered through the lens of 21st century America - maybe the actresses resented the patrician attitudes and wandering hands, or maybe 100 years ago, women couldn't envision the world to be otherwise. Who knows? I wasn't around, so I won't pretend I do. More interesting is that the type of people drawn to Hollywood, or more to the point, the types of behavior they seem to openly espouse, hasn't changed in the past century.
I liked The Girls in the Picture and read it quickly. I did think that at times it felt Benjamin was writing just to write; that is, whatever point she'd been working to establish or image she wished to evoke had long been accomplished, but the words still flowed and so she committed them to paper. This is a relatively minor flaw, but enough to say that, had the book been 50 or so pages shorter, I'd have been that much more disposed toward it.
Four stars.
As always, Benjamin has done her homework and brings her characters fully to life, their fun, fame, and flaws equally on display. Hers is a no-holds-barred style and goes a long way toward capturing her protagonists as they really were (one imagines). She did omit Pickford's children, which is perhaps understandable given that, according to Wikipedia, "Both children later said their mother was too self-absorbed to provide real maternal love. ... Ronnie recalled that "Things didn't work out that much, you know. But I'll never forget her. I think that she was a good woman."
Her topic - the golden days of Hollywood - has certainly been thoroughly mined (West of Sunset and All the Stars in the Heavens came to mind regularly), but in Frances Marion, Benjamin has found a sympathetic character whose story is likely new to her reading audience. (That said, I do live under a pretty big rock, pop culture-wise, so maybe I've just revealed myself as a complete ignoramus.) On occasion, some of Fran's thoughts seemed forced, or overly filtered through the lens of 21st century America - maybe the actresses resented the patrician attitudes and wandering hands, or maybe 100 years ago, women couldn't envision the world to be otherwise. Who knows? I wasn't around, so I won't pretend I do. More interesting is that the type of people drawn to Hollywood, or more to the point, the types of behavior they seem to openly espouse, hasn't changed in the past century.
I liked The Girls in the Picture and read it quickly. I did think that at times it felt Benjamin was writing just to write; that is, whatever point she'd been working to establish or image she wished to evoke had long been accomplished, but the words still flowed and so she committed them to paper. This is a relatively minor flaw, but enough to say that, had the book been 50 or so pages shorter, I'd have been that much more disposed toward it.
Four stars.
Thursday, October 26, 2017
American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, and the Birth of Hollywood
In 1910, 21 people died when The Los Angeles Times was bombed. Other bombs planted around the city failed to explode. Eager, desperate even, to solve the "crime of the century," the city of Los Angeles hired private detective Billy Burns - himself the Sherlock Holmes of his day - to investigate. Billy finds his man, or men as the case may be, and then finds himself entangled in the shenanigans of Clarence Darrow, who has been hired to defend the bombers. All the while, both Burns and Darrow find their tactics being increasingly influenced by the nascent movie industry, particularly the work of D.W. Griffith who is in the process of creating Hollywood as we know it today.
All of this Howard Blum ties together brilliantly, in a face-paced, action-packed 300 pages that I could not read fast enough. Very quickly, Blum brings to life the people and events of 100 years ago, from Mary Pickford's pique at Griffith to LA Mayor George Alexander's underhanded deal to bring water to the city - and a profit to himself. In a day and age when the new cycle seldom lasts an afternoon, it's difficult to appreciate the way in which the bombing and subsequent trial dominated headlines. (In this way, I was reminded of the SS Eastland and other similar headline-dominating horrors, now long forgotten.)
Ultimately, Blum's work is the simultaneous telling of the creation of Hollywood and the early twentieth century battle between capitalism and labor. The way in which he connects these is fascinating; there's something here for everyone, from mystery and suspense to social commentary to film buffs, and I have no qualms about recommending it widely.
Four stars.
All of this Howard Blum ties together brilliantly, in a face-paced, action-packed 300 pages that I could not read fast enough. Very quickly, Blum brings to life the people and events of 100 years ago, from Mary Pickford's pique at Griffith to LA Mayor George Alexander's underhanded deal to bring water to the city - and a profit to himself. In a day and age when the new cycle seldom lasts an afternoon, it's difficult to appreciate the way in which the bombing and subsequent trial dominated headlines. (In this way, I was reminded of the SS Eastland and other similar headline-dominating horrors, now long forgotten.)
Ultimately, Blum's work is the simultaneous telling of the creation of Hollywood and the early twentieth century battle between capitalism and labor. The way in which he connects these is fascinating; there's something here for everyone, from mystery and suspense to social commentary to film buffs, and I have no qualms about recommending it widely.
Four stars.
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