Category: biography

Careless People

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

Now it might not a be a huge secret I’m not the most literary person. Sure I read oodles of books, have planned vacation days around trips to bookstores and was just on the phone with the Most Evil Sibling Ever (Andy) last night planning a trip to the Friends of the Ferguson Library Book Store for Wednesday (hooray for flex holidays!) but just because you read books doesn’t make you literary. You’ll never find me singing the praises of the literary canon far and wide. Actually you’re more likely to find me proclaiming how Melville should have just made out with Nathaniel Hawthorne more than how much I enjoyed Moby Dick and Billy Budd (loathe both books so very much).

So imagine my surprise when I’m cruising by the New Biography section at the Berlin-Peck Memorial Library and snap up a book on F. Scott Fitzgerald. And not just any book about F. Scott Fitzgerald, but one about The Great Gatsby, a novel that is right up there in Gwen Loathes It list right next to Moby Dick, the complete works of Charles Dickens and Ernest Hemingway. If you love love love F. Scott Fitzgerald and think I’m a savage, it’s totally okay to stop reading now. Before you shriek too much, remember I have actually read The Great Gatsby (a horrid school experience against my will) and have of my own free will read several books about the Fitzgeralds. They’re my Kardashians, a train wreck of people who I know more about than I ever intended too. I mean, you can’t read about the Murphys or Dorothy Parker without encountering Scott and Zelda. And the best of these books? Explore the society the Fitzgeralds interacted with right down to the bootleggers and publishers and the rest.

Don’t check me for pod marks. The book in question is Sarah Churchwell’s Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the Invention of The Great Gatsby, an interesting exploration of both one of my most loathed books and a unsolved murder from the 1920s that has intrigued me since I was a wee thing. True crime has always been in my wheelhouse and when you combine true crime with a greater look at society I’m in. With all my reading it never fully occurred to me a crime as well known (it was consider one of the crimes of it’s decade) as the Hall-Mills Murder would have influenced the fiction of it’s time. (For people who never heard of the Hall-Mills Murder, in 1922 the Reverend Hall and his married mistress Mrs Mills were found dead in a lane under a tree with love letters scattered around them.) Let alone a book many people (not me) consider one of the best books ever written.

But that is the basic premise of Careless People, the Hall-Mills Murders influenced and impacted F. Scott Fitzgerald as he plotted and planned his greatest novel. And Sarah Churchwell’s carefully researched details (right down to things from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s scrapbook that dispute certain details you come to expect when you read enough about Scott and Zelda) give you an excellent picture of what life was like as the Fitzgeralds partied and Scott tried to write and the horrifically inept handling of the Hall-Mills murder case.

Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the Invention of The Great Gatsby, doesn’t solve the Hall-Mills Murder (sadly we are more likely to solve the Jack the Ripper murders than who killed Reverend Hall and Mrs Mills due to the bungling police work) but it does do something even my most dedicated professors could never do, made me understand and think about The Great Gatsby beyond something I was being forced to read to pass a class to get that degree. Any decent writer can make Scott and Zelda come alive on the page just due to the force of their personalities but it takes a talented and thoughtful author to make me care about Fitzgerald’s works.

Will Careless People make me snatch up Mr Kindle and buy The Great Gatsby right this second? Will I be tracking down a Norton Critical Edition to get the full Gatsby experience like I did after reading Dreiser’s Sister Carrie for the first time? Never in a million years. But is Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the Invention of The Great Gatsby a book I would read again? Certainly.

A Life of Barbara Stanwyck Steel-True

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

Ever since I was old enough to check out books from the adult part of the library, I’ve read towering stacks of movie star biographies. Some are as told you autobiographies that for all they reveal about the star might as well be turned into those book crafts I see on Buzzfeed every so often. You might as well read their Wikipedia page. Other movie star biographies are either so poorly written either to paint their subject as a saint or sinner of all sinners that well, you read them to the end but feel like you’ve just eaten a box of Twinkies for dinner and hate yourself for reading the darn book. (I’m looking at you Forever Young : The Life, Loves, and Enduring Faith of a Hollywood Legend ; The Authorized Biography of Loretta Young.)

And is Victoria Wilson’s A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940. Stunning, brilliant, epic and don’t drop this bad boy on your foot come to mind. It’s almost 1000 pages including notes and indexes. We are talking Tom Clancy/Stephen King doorstop size. And it’s just the first volume of a full scale biography. And let’s not forget Miss Barbara Stanwyck worked all the time. Work was like books, essential as breathing. Trust me, if you’re looking for a quick read that has S-E-X and scandal on every single page? Please put down A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940 (gently because once again trust me, you don’t want to drop this and break a toe) and scamper off to find a Hollywood Babylon book.

It’s not easy to write a biography on a movie star like Barbara Stanwyck. The easy path for the Stanwyck biographer is to use the studo stories about the tough orphan from the streets and maybe her alleged loved of ladies angle. Luckily, Victoria Wilson does not go the easy route even though she could given her subject. Barbara Stanwyck is not your Marilyn Monroe or Joan Crawford with oceans of press stories and scandals to wade through. She was also not the most open or accessible person. I always got the feeling that if someone like Shelley Winters would open up with a drop of a hat in line at Dunkin Donuts while you waited for your Vanilla Bean Coolattas at the pickup counter and tell you everything you ever wanted to know right down to did they dress left or dress right. But Barbara Stanwyck would be a total clam even if you knew her for years and years. Maybe she might crack open a little bit if you caught her at the right time but you’d be better off buying a Powerball ticket during a $400+ million jackpot week.

And that feeling doesn’t seem to be far off because the Barbara Stanwyck Victoria Wilson uncovers is a woman who keeps to herself. The little girl born Ruby Stevens came from a good family on a downward slide and by the time she was a school aged had no proper home. The very young Ruby was placed with various families and her older siblings, a corner of a room here and there with magical times her favorite sister would swoop in and show her the theatrical world. Given all this turmoil and struggles to support herself once she was a teenager, is this any wonder the young Ruby developed a hard shell. And seriously, how could I not love an person who educated themselves and read so much bookstores would send them things automatically? A person who could read a book every night no matter how long she spent on set or toiling at her ranch.

One of the things you take away from A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940 is the iron control that propelled Barbara Stanwyck. Curse her for the way she could drop a friend so completely the hurt can still be felt on the page decades later. Curse her for not leaving Frank Fay sooner. Curse her for not being the mother her son Dion needed. But praise her for the willpower and control she exhibited. A woman who could force herself to work after being crushed by a horse? A woman who filmed some of her best early parts strapped and taped up, her face never betraying the extent of how battered her body was? An actress who cared more about the craft than what gown was being whipped up for her.

Barbara Stanwyck wasn’t perfect or a superwoman but she had layers and levels beyond the usual movie star of her times. That is a lady I want to read more about. And Victoria Wilson can not write the next volumes quick enough to satisfy me.

 

 

 

 

Inside Peyton Place

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Sometimes when you read a book, you want to fire up the old Literary Time Machine (Blacklight: “Lemme guess, you want to make out with H.P. Lovecraft” Me: <death glare> “No…”) I want to go back to the 1956 and smack away every glass of Canadian Club and 7 UP that Grace Metalious even gave the slightest longing look at. And I also want to frog-march her directly to a competent agent and financial manager and not let her sneak back to The Plaza until every last paper was signed. I wonder if Emily Toth ever had the same crazy thoughts while she was working on Inside Peyton Place: The Life of Grace Metalious. Because let me tell you, out of the Shirley Jackson/Grace Metalious/Jacqueline Susann trio? Grace was the clear winner of the shouldn’t be coveted Most Bleeped Up Her Life title. And we’re talking about some stiff competition because Shirley Jackson and Jacqueline Susann? Lots of Bad Life Choice Theater.

Blacklight: “Who the heck is Grace Metalious again?”

In case you haven’t visited the Grace Metalious page or are my beloved Minecraft addicted spouse Blacklight, Grace Metalious is an author who wrote the mega best seller Peyton Place about the secrets of a small New England. This novel spawned an Oscar nominated movie, several television shows and sequels. If you’re under 40 years old? Your parents or grandparents read Peyton Place in secret, clucking over all the s-e-x. Unless of course you’re my parents. Neither of them read the darn book, even though my mother remembers watching the 1964-1969 prime-time soap opera and “not liking that Allison girl at all”.

Now of course as a wee lass reading Peyton Place, Return to Peyton Place, The Tight White Collar and No Adam in Eden, I had no idea that the lady behind these crumbling paperbacks I found at tag sales died young and broke. Or that we shared a French-Canadian heritage. Grace Metalious just seemed so young and innocent and sad in the iconic “Pandora in Blue Jeans” picture. Nothing like the glamorous leopard clad Jackie Collins whose books I was devouring as fast as Her Collins could produce them. Then one day, after I had a license and realized my library card could be used at any public library in the state, I found Emily Toth’s Inside Peyton Place: The Life of Grace Metalious. And boy oh boy was my image of Grace Metalious shattered.

Grace Metalious’ rise from child of blue collar workers in a New Hampshire mill town to marrying young to living a shack of a rented house  with a dry well to writing the bestseller Peyton Place was like something out of a Hollywood movie. One with Joan Crawford in Adrian gowns at the end. And what happened after the fame and fortune from Peyton Place? Something John Waters and his stable of stars would film with Divine in a sloppy housecoat with booze stains down the front as Grace. How do you just sign over all the film rights to a movie studio without protecting yourself? Or blaze through all your royalties and that sweet $250,000 studio check in less than eight years?

Would you still want to read Peyton Place, Return to Peyton Place, The Tight White Collar and No Adam in Eden after encountering Inside Peyton Place: The Life of Grace Metalious? YES! It’s worth the trouble of tracking them down. Inside Peyton Place: The Life of Grace Metalious adds annotations to the experience. Who knew Grace could have avoid certain legal troubles if she just changed certain character names? Or just how much of her own life was being woven into her books. The quick end coming out of nowhere in No Adam in Eden is easier to understand once you know the circumstances in which the book was written. And after reading Grace’s notes for a third Peyton Place novel, you wonder what could have been if Grace Metalious was able to stay away from the bottle long enough to plop her butt in that lovely office in her dream house and write. A lesser writer than Emily Toth would have sneered at the wreck of Grace Metalious’ life  with all it’s scandals but Emily Toth has the skill make you care as deeply about her subject as she did.

Kay Thompson

~ Wendy-Marie ~ 1 Comment

If you say the name Kay Thompson, you’ll most likely get blank faces. Then try mentioning the movie Funny Face (to savages like Blacklight, it’s the one with Audrey Hepburn dancing in black capris that the GAP grape soda’ed with AC/DC’s Back in Black) or her best selling book about an undead demon spawn sent to earth to torment the living um I mean, the darling of The Plaza Hotel, the eternally six Eloise.

But Funny Face  and Eloise were the second act of Thompson’s career. Flashback to the 1930s and Kay Thompson was all over the radio, singing the hits solo or with a band of girls. And she went off to Hollywood and coached all the greats including her rumored lover/certainly best friend Judy Garland. Not too shabby for the ugly duckling daughter of pawnbroker right?

And just how did I stumble across all this juicy info about Kay Thompson? It was late April, Blacklight and I are in the Book Barn Downtown killing time during The Great Window Replacement of 2011. I have a shiny new iPhone (a lovely 3GS, don’t have iPhone 4 monies). Blacklight has an iced Dunkee Cup the size of his head. As Blacklight and his giant Dunkee Cup scamper damper off to see what horrific Stephen R. Donaldson wonders might be lurking in the stacks, I’m headed towards the humor section when BAMMO WHAMMO I ALMOST STEP ON A BOOK! Sam Irvin’s Kay Thompson: From Funny Face to Eloise.

So of course I pick it up. Like what I see, but the price is a little high. $7 for a used copy can also buy 1.33 lbs of my favorite Chinese buffett (Blacklight: “Oh, a light snack <snickers>?”) Or two Starbucks Passion Tea Lemonades. I’m all “dang I wish I had a piece of paper to write down the ISBN….dummy….YOU HAVE AN IPHONE NOW!”. Cue me standing in the middle of the film aisle tapping at my iPhone with little sausage fingers and putting Kay Thompson: From Funny Face to Eloise on my inter library loan list! Go Mr iPhone Go Mr iPhone!

Maybe I should have splashed out the $7 at the Book Barn Downtown because my goodness gracious, Kay Thompson: From Funny Face to Eloise  is chock full of awesome. I always thought Kay Thompson was some WASPy blonde from New England. Nope, Kay Thompson may have been the greatest creation to EVER spring from Kitty Fink’s fertile brain.

Her grit and determination made her a star several times over THREE DECADES. She knew how to work the system. Golly, I love Hondas! Dear Honda, can I have a silver 4 door 2011 Honda Accord if I name drop Honda in every blog post? NO? Damnnnnnn….Kay Thompson would have gotten the whole damn Honda fleet! With leather and gold trim! And you can’t walk into the children’s section of a bookstore and NOT find Eloise! Ignore the plump brunette in glasses clutching her pink clad Mr iPhone who is rocking back and forth like she’s just sat through the entire Sex and the City thing INCLUDING BOTH MOVIES!

Like her fellow best-selling children’s book featuring unholy demon spawns bearing torment and eternal suffering to all those who stumble into their orbits I mean, an enchanting blonde who lives in a fantastic world author Dare Wright, Kay Thompson’s later years marked a major decline. Remember how Dare Wright looked like an ancient Barbie doll? Kay Thompson looked like a walking skeleton. Luckily, Kay Thompson didn’t die in a hospital alone but spent her final years much loved by her god-daughter Liza Minnelli who went so far as to allow her godmother to take over her one bedroom New York apartment for years. Now remember, Kay Thompson wasn’t the easiest person to deal with. Eloise illustrator Hillary Knight got majorly grape soda’ed by his dealings with Thompson. Miss Kay wasn’t afraid to sue or take full credit when it came to her projects. So add that to an INSANE New York City housing market and you can totally give Liza Minnelli a pass for her whiskey tango foxtrot union with David Gest.

Once you read about Kay Thompson, her life story will stick with you. Heck, it’s been three weeks since I cracked open Kay Thompson: From Funny Face to Eloise  and went down the rabbit hole and I DIDN’T EVEN HAVE TO CRACK OPEN THE BOOK TO REFRESH MY MEMORY OF IT. I read lots of books. LOTS OF BOOKS. Usually I have to peek at least once or twice when I’m blogging! So Bravo! Good job, Sam Irvin, good job.

My Korean Deli

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There are days you pick up certain books just because you know “hey my life is meh but at least I’m not THAT poor bastard”. And it’s even better if it’s a true story. Just call me Gwen Schadenfreude-Mrs Blacklight!

If you’re like me, you might want to smack Ben Ryder Howe at the beginning of My Korean Deli: Risking It All For A Convenience Store. Because seriously? Writer living in his in-laws basement? DOOM DOOM AND DOOM SAUCE! Then again I should be nice. I’m not the WASP marrying into an immigrant family with a radically different outlook on work/family/home. Then again he had to know could/would be conflicts in the future.

So let’s get to the meat of the book. Ben’s wife Gab is in crisis. She wants to give her mother an amazing gift. A family business, a deli in New York City. The family looks at delis but nothing seems right. Then in a whirlwind, the family finds said deli, buys said deli and becomes enslaved to said deli. Everyone gets sucked in. Ben splits his time between the crumbing Paris Review and the deli. The ownership of the deli takes everything from neighborhood good will, time, money, health and freedom. Eventually the family decides to give up the deli knowing keeping it will only be the final blow in destroying them.

Schadenfreude and wanting to shake sense into Ben and Gab aside, My Korean Deli gives a sneak peek behind the scenes of the corner store. The next time I’m zipping through town to the library or heading to work at 6:30am, those awnings and flashing signs of local delis and bodegas will give me pause. And that, besides a forbidden Hostess snack cake is the best kind of takeaway you can get from a book.

Blow By Blow: The Story of Isabella Blow

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If you read about/worship/are part of a certain level of the fashion world, you know who Isabella Blow is. If you’re trolling the racks at T.J. Maxx or choosing between the different fits of Faded Glory jeans at Wal-mart chances are excellent you don’t know who Isabella Blow. And if you’re Blacklight you pick up Blow By Blow from the dining room table and ask why the person on the cover looks like they belong on “that weird drag queen show you watch…how come every one on there is gay?”<cue RuPaul’s head EXPLODING from the sheer derp> .

Isabella Blow was a creature that didn’t belong in our time or place. Perhaps it’s best to imagine her in the 1920s Paris, having tea with Chanel herself or in the 1930s having Elsa design an amazing dress. A person who loves fashion so much and walked about sporting extreme hats is in the wrong time and place.

Besides cover art and a title that jumps of the shelf Blow By Blow is the attempt of a grieving husband to explain and make sense of his late wife’s life. Isabella Blow’s life at any point could have come straight from a book. Her early years as a peer’s eldest daughter have a Barbara Pym meets Angela Thirkell meets Barbara Vine meets Nancy Mitford quality. Her early American years a Pat Booth bonkbuster (Pat Booth author of Palm Beach/creator of Her Highness Lisa The White Trash With The Conical Tits and Heart-Shaped Ass). Her New York years a Tama Janowitz story, her London years a Wendy Holden novel with a dark turn.

But the reader needs to be careful before jumping in. If you don’t have pre-existing knowledge of the fashion world of the 1980 onward or easily understand the world of the English peer you’re going to have a rough time reading. If you skew Blacklight (nerd boy who worships Stephen R. Donaldson) put down the book and walk away. But if you’re more girl Anglophile me, give it a try. The lady under the hats was as extreme as her clothes and just as fragile.

Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford

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When your first introduction to Joan Crawford is seeing Mommie Dearest on HBO circa 1982, you might have a slight skewed view of her. And reading the book Mommie Dearest might be the first step of reading every biography of Joan Crawford and her rivals for the next twenty-something years and counting. And read Joan Crawford biographies I have. Let’s see…Not the Girl Next Door, Joan Crawford: Hollywood Martyr, Joan Crawford: A Biography, A Portrait of Joan: An Autobiography, Joan Crawford: The Ultimate Star, The Golden Girls of MGM, Joan Crawford: The Last Word, Bette and Joan: The Divine Feud, Crawford’s Men, Possessed: The Turbulent Life of Joan Crawford, Mommie Dearest…

No big surprise I picked up Donald Spoto’s latest tome Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford. Even if it was bad, reading it was still better than nothing to read during morning/afternoon snack. Color me pleasantly surprised. Possessed is one of the more balanced Crawford biographies I’ve encountered. YMMV.

Crawford isn’t portrayed as a demon or a saint. She’s a lady with a rough childhood who decided to improving herself and maintaining a star image as her main goal in life. She’s driven and before in her time in maintaining a fit body. Her choice in men leaves something to be desired but who hasn’t got a guy in their past they don’t regret? In regards to her older children, if Christina and Christopher were difficult and vibrant no wonder Joan was at her wits end. Some people aren’t meant to be parents. Being an adult dealing with Joan might have been easier than as a child. Because as an adult you don’t have to rely on your grownup for food/shelter/money.

So if you’re looking for the “Joan Crawford was TIPPY HO BAG LESBO MOOGLY-GOOGLY” you’ll need to find another book. Try one of the original Hollywood Babylon books. If you’re looking for “Joan was a SAINT I TELL YOU A SAINT FROM THE HEAVENS” try the Charlotte Chandler (Not the Girl Next Door) biography. Or just go on Netflix, put some Crawford in your queue (The Women)  and enjoy.