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
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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