This thoughtful and well-wrought first novel joins the most unlikely of romantic protagonists: a sedate New England librarian and an 11-year-old pituitary giant. Outwardly plain, Peggy Cort sees her loneliness as part of her personality; her only conversation is with library patrons. At 25, she has no family, no beau until James Carlson Sweatt comes to her desk with questions, and she begins to fall in love. For Peggy Cort, "Knowledge is Love."
James and his family become the center of her life, and her devotion grows as steadily as James, who reaches the astounding height of 8'6" by the age of 19. Handsome, talented, bright, James is "doomed to be mostly enormous," sought out by a Boston shoe company, curious Cape Cod tourists and Barnum and Bailey's circus.
The driving force of this work is Peggy's enormous emotional growth, which parallels James's own relentless physical development. The wonder of The Giant's House is its characters, powerfully and sensitively evoked, and its plot, which shifts into high gear and wraps up with a quirky yet romantic finish. (Dial, $19.95)
by John H. Richardson
In this '90s twist on The Day of the Locust—Nathanael West's memorable 1939 noir novel of Hollywood—former Premiere senior writer Richardson gleefully sinks his fangs into the Dream Capitol. Although, in the usual disclaimer, he insists his monsters-in-Armani are pure fiction, readers will have endless fun plugging in the identities of deceased producer Don Simpson, madam Heidi Fleiss, O.J. attorney Robert Shapiro and father-daughter phenoms Aaron and Tori Spelling, among many other possibles.
The plot centers around the rape (or was it?) of cocaine-fueled teen queen Tracy Rose, daughter of fading producer Barry Rose. Tracy claims one of the culprits is her father's archenemy, flamboyant action-film producer Max Fischer (his Blood Hunt grossed zillions!). As the action swirls from a punchup at Morton's, the exclusive industry eatery, to oddly decorated back-lot bungalows to mirrored Beverly Hills love nests, snakeskins are shed. Whodunit—if anyone dunit—is not nearly as interesting as why dunit. In a town where image is everything, the elaborate case and its attendant publicity are merely a setup to convince Tom Hanks to commit to a certain project. As a reader, you'll have no trouble committing to Vipers. (Morrow, $24)
by Art Buchwald
In the spring of 1948, 22-year-old Art Buchwald came to Paris to study on the GI Bill. He came, he saw, and he was quickly put wise about how to take advantage of the U.S. government's largesse without setting foot in a classroom. Buchwald never learned French. But as his affectionate, if uneven, memoir makes clear, he got a formidable education in the 14 years he spent in the City of Light, first as an impecunious nobody telling pretty lies to pretty girls in cafes, then as a voraciously read columnist for the International Herald Tribune.
Buchwald's debut as a journalist was not auspicious. He was inclined to end a film review with, "This is a good film if you understand French." But he found his voice—as an impish innocent abroad—and it was a whiff of home for Americans in Paris. Buchwald dined with Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman, crashed parties, attended Grace Kelly's wedding and, with the sly intervention of Mike Todd's wife, Elizabeth Taylor, foiled the impresario's attempts to stick him with a huge restaurant tab. His stories are not all as good as these, but Buchwald is an enthusiastic, generous raconteur and makes his Paris ours as well. (Putnam, $24.95)
by Sandra Brown
The plot rings familiar: a charismatic young President, a troubled First Lady and a scandal that could rock the nation. But when Brown takes a turn at political fiction, she doesn't do it anonymously. After all, with book sales of more than 40 million, the former romance novelist has proved she can land her books on the bestseller list simply by signing her name. What Brown doesn't do, it seems, is spend much time researching the worlds she writes about, a flaw that is readily apparent in her latest effort.
Exclusive introduces TV reporter Barrie Travis, who stumbles onto the story of a lifetime when the First Lady invites her to lunch and tearfully hints that her deceased child may have been the victim of something other than Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Never mind that First Ladies don't generally invite reporters from second-rate local TV stations to lunch. Or that station executives aren't likely to let even their best reporter hop a plane across the country in pursuit of a story they know nothing about. Brown isn't one to let the facts get in the way of a good story.
With the help of well-muscled ex-Marine and former presidential aide Gray Bondurant, Travis digs up leads, dodges bullets and, naturally, falls in love. Brown writes a plot-wise, entertaining yarn, but if she really wants to move into the pop ranks of writers like Grisham and Cornwell, she should do her homework. (Warner, $22.95)
by Barbara Belford
Bram Stoker's "reticence was monumental," the author admits in the introduction to this life of Dracula's creator. Not a promising quality for biographers, but luckily Stoker was surrounded by a monumentally talky—and fascinating—cast of late-19th-century characters.
As the business manager of popular actor Henry Irving and his Lyceum Theatre in London, Stoker frequently crossed paths with Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, and often entrusted his wife to escort William S. Gilbert (sans Sullivan). On theatrical tours of America, Stoker made a point of visiting his idol, the poet Walt Whitman. But mostly the tall, athletic Irishman hurried after Irving, writing his speeches, juggling his schedule and balancing his books.
Oh, and Stoker wrote a bit of fiction on the side. His adventure tales and lurid stories of the occult didn't attract much attention during his lifetime and wouldn't be remembered today if not for Hollywood and Bela Lugosi. Author Belford struggles mightily to make a case for Dracula's literary significance and to tie the story to Stoker's life ("Dracula is all about Irving as the vampire and [British actress Ellen] Terry as the unattainable good woman"), but there's slender evidence for either argument. Bram Stoker is best as a gossipy glance behind the curtains during an important era of English theater. When Belford strays into psychological and literary analysis, Stoker's reticence becomes a biographical stake in the heart. (Knopf, $30)
by Alan C. Greenberg
Want to get ahead in business? Alan "Ace" Greenberg, who has enjoyed plenty of success as chairman of the brokerage firm Bear Stearns & Co., believes it comes down to paper clips, phone manners and the right attitude, pretty much in that order. No free-spending Wall Street titan he, Greenberg hoards paper clips that come with his mail instead of buying new ones. He instructs his employees to be just as thrifty in more than a few memos collected here. His other obsessions include having the company phones answered promptly and politely, and hiring from within whenever possible. The main qualification for a job at Bear Stearns is not an MBA but what Greenberg calls a PSD (Poor, Smart and Deeply desirous of getting rich).
Greenberg's memos have a jokey tone but a completely serious intent: to get his people to see the world as he does. Keeping expenses down is the key to profitability in the Greenberg cosmos. And he warns, "Thou will do well in commerce as long as thou does not believe thine own odor is perfume." It's a simple message but a wise one, helping to make this amusing minimanagement manual come up aces. (Workman, $14.95)
by Lindsay Maracotta
Beach Book of the Week
LIKE ALMOST EVERYONE IN HOLLYWOOD, animator Lucy Freers wants to make a name for herself—but not as the neighbor who discovers the perfectly liposuctioned corpse of starlet turned trophy wife Julia Prentice. At the start of this delightfully sharp-clawed page-turner, about the only thing the feisty Freers likes less is the label the police pin on her and her producer hubby, Kit: prime suspects.
While Kit blithely begins scouting locations for the movie he hopes will restore his reputation after two huge flops, Lucy undertakes some sleuthing to salvage her own. What she swiftly discovers is that Hollywood's trendy designer domesticity—adoptions of waifs trumpeted on ET, superstar moms carpooling in their Range Rovers—merely throws a Martha Stewart apron over canyons of kinky sex, blackmail and assorted skulduggeries.
The dirt her hero digs up gives Maracotta, author of four previous novels, ample ammunition for spoofing the celebrity goofiness she has come to know during a decade as a Los Angeles screenwriter and television producer. This dishy, suspenseful read is as delicious as eavesdropping at Drai's—without the Schwarzenegger-size tab. (Morrow, $24)
>Tama Janowitz
NO SLAVE TO FAME
LIKE LEVERAGED BUYOUTS AND THE Brat Pack, Tama Janowitz belonged to the '80s. Slaves of New York, her 1986 collection of short stories, won her fame as a hip chronicler of urban angst, but two followup novels have barely made a blip on the '90s radar.
Yet Janowitz, 39, keeps busy scampering after 11-month-old Willow, the baby girl she and husband Tim Hunt, the curator for the Andy Warhol Foundation, adopted in China. "I thought it was going to be like having a dog," she jokes. "But Willow just wants to go all the time, and I can't get anything done." She did finish a novel, By the Shores of Gitchee Gumee, bound for stores this fall with far less fanfare than in the heady old days, when she and her pal Warhol liked to set each other up on blind dates. Hunt, who handled the auction of Warhol's belongings after his death in 1987, married Janowitz five years ago. "I always felt that Andy was looking after me," she says. "It's like he brought me my husband."
Secure in marriage and motherhood, Janowitz is philosophical about her literary career. "I feel I haven't found a large group of people with my sense of humor," she says. "But I don't care as much anymore. To begin to enjoy the actual writing for itself is a truly wonderful thing."
- Contributors:
- Louisa Ermelino,
- J.D. Reed,
- Joanne Kaufman,
- Pam Lambert,
- Cynthia Sanz,
- Mark Lasswell,
- Clare McHugh,
- Anne Longley.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
