The romance between F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sheilah Graham, as earnestly rendered by her novelist son (Rich Kids, 1992, etc.). In July of 1937, when 40-year-old Fitzgerald headed for his third stint in Hollywood, his novels were for the most part out of print, he was nearly $40,000 in debt, and his wife, Zelda, was institutionalized. Still, he was not drinking; he was filled with determination. At a party of Robert Benchley's, he spotted Sheilah Graham, a former chorus girl from London's East End who was working as a gossip columnist for a newspaper syndicate. She and Fitzgerald started an affair; she was initially nervous because he asked detailed questions about her childhood, and she'd invented aristocratic relatives and falsely described herself as a bored society girl who'd been slumming in the theater. But she finally spilled the truth, describing the poverty that had driven her mother to have her committed to an orphanage and the sexual maneuverings that had accompanied her life onstage. He was tender, drawn by her vulnerability and curious about her character (she became the model for the heroine of The Last Tycoon). Their romance was punctuated by his occasional, cataclysmic tumbles off the wagon. He steered her to great books; she tried to control his drinking. Periodically they would break up; always they would reconcile. He died at her home in December 1940. Despite Westbrook's family ties, it's Grahamthe sex-charged, self-invented womanwho remains two-dimensional. Fitzgerald, on the other hand, mesmerizes as he self-destructs, compelling his lover with his fragility and generosity and trumpeting his pain and frustration via bludgeoning cruelty and extravagant gin binges. What lingers, though, is not the unsynchronized dance of the lovers' mutual demons, but the portraitfamiliar but poignant nonethelessof Hollywood running roughshod over literary talent, and of the grim ravages of alcoholism. (photos, not seen.) (Author tour)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-06-018343-8
Page Count: 512
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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