Books I've read: Up With the Sun

 

If you know me, you know I have a thing about classic movies, Broadway shows and old-time celebrity gossip.  So when I saw this book that's a fictionalised account of the life (and death) of a decidedly C-list celebrity, I knew I had to read it.  Especially when I realised the celebrity in question was gay and hiding it like so many celebrities of his era.

Dick Kallman, the celebrity in question, is not the nicest character - something that is very likely the reason he didn't have the success he dreamed of.  Luckily, out POV character through the book is not Dick (who was murdered in 1980), but his friend Matt, a pianist whose life is actually more showbiz than Dick's, if less flashy.

Spanning a period from the 1950s through to the 1980s, the book offers a snapshot of the way gay culture and attitudes to homosexuality changed over the 30 years through the eyes of someone living that reality and disliking himself for it.  There are delightful little cameos from real life stars from the barely known to the top of the Hollywood food chain, and enough gossip to sink a ship.

The central mystery - how Dick Kallman was killed and why - is not the most interesting part of the book, but is a great premise to hang the rest of the story on and gives Matt license to dig into Dick's past through a scrapbook Dick kept of his showbiz career that Matt pilfers from the crime scene. It also gives Matt a romance of his own with a street-hustler turned police informant who quickly becomes central to his life.

Part true-crime, part social history and part celebrity dish, I enjoyed this one.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

A look back at the life of a little-known, C-list celebrity striver who met a bad end in New York City in the 1980s.

Dick Kallman was an up-and-coming actor—until he wasn’t. From co-starring in Broadway shows, to becoming part of Lucille Ball’s historic Desilu workshop, and then finally landing his own short-lived primetime TV series, Dick’s star was clearly on the rise. But his roles began to dry up and he faded from the spotlight - until his sensational murder in 1980. Told from the perspective of Matt Liannetto, Dick’s occasional pianist and longtime acquaintance, we see the full story of Dick’s life and death. Liannetto is a talented journeyman pianist, often on the fringes of Broadway history’s most important moments. He’s also a gay man who grew up in an era when that sort of information was closely held, and he struggles with accepting the rapid changes happening in the world around him.

Up With The Sun takes readers on a journey that spans more than thirty years, from the studio lots and rehearsal sets of the 1950s to the seedy streets of 1970s Manhattan. It is a busy, bustling world, peopled by a captivating cast of characters all clamoring for a sliver of the limelight. Readers will bump elbows with Sophie Tucker and gossip about Rock Hudson during intermission at Judy Garland’s comeback show. Newsweek has called Mallon a "master of the historical novel," and here he proves himself a veteran of the genre, doing what he does best: conjuring figures from history who feel real enough to walk right off the page. This is a crime story, a showbiz story, a love story, and a deeply moving story about a series of pivotal moments in the history of gay life in the post-war era.

Weekly Goals 29-7-24

 As I suspected, I didn't get any writing time over the weekend, so I've made no more progress on A Stranger to Kindness.  And I suspect this week will be much the same, especially since the Film Festival starts on Wednesday too.

I don't have a ton of films booked for the Festival this year - just 10 at this stage, but I may add a few more once we're in train.

Everyone in my house has a cold at the moment, so my main goal for the week is to try and avoid catching that.  I have far too much on this week to be able to deal with being sick!

And that's about it for me.  

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 26-7-24

 

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small Things...

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!

Well, kind of...  We've got the semi-finals for the opera singing competition we're running happening, so I'm working all weekend.  But it is just in the evening, so I may get a bit of writing time during the day.  But I'm not counting on it.

Had a couple more query rejections for Guide Us this week.  I seriously don't know what's wrong with this one.  I've never had such a dire response rate to a query.  And this query has had more professional eyes on it than any previous one.  It's incredibly frustrating.

And that's about it for me this week.  What are you celebrating?

Books I've read: We Are The Light

 

I picked this up on my last trip to the library because I've enjoyed other books by Matthew Quick and figured I'd probably like this one too.  And while I didn't love it, I did enjoy it and appreciate what it was trying to do.

Lucas Goodgame has survived an unspeakable tragedy that has taken his wife from him and torn his entire small town apart. He manages to hold himself together with his belief that his wife, Darcey, has stayed with him in her angelic form, visiting each night to hold him and guide him through his grief and the fact his analyst appears to have abandoned him.

Through a series of letters to his analyst, Lucas tells the story of his grief and eventual healing, something that is brought about when a young man, the brother of the person who instigated the violence that tore through the town, sets up camp in his yard.  A former counsellor at the high school, Lucas is drawn to help this damaged boy, and through helping him, somehow manages to heal the entire town.

Lucas is a fascinating POV character in that he wholly believes what he thinks is happening, even though his interactions with the townspeople show us that he is not seeing everything as clearly as he thinks he is.  And what a town it is!  All the citizens who rally around Lucas have their own quirks and eccentricities and they are really what makes this book so delightful.

The eventual revealing of the truth of what happened the night of the tragedy, and Lucas's own acceptance of the truth make for compelling reading. And of course, the fact that there is a movie theatre right there in the centre of the story, doesn't hurt.  At least from my perspective.

So I'd recommend this one.  It is heavy in places, and its depiction of grief and grieving is very real and raw, so if you're in a fragile place or on your own journey through grief, it may be tough read.  You've been warned...

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

Lucas Goodgame lives in Majestic, Pennsylvania, a quaint suburb that has been torn apart by a recent tragedy. Everyone in Majestic sees Lucas as a hero—everyone, that is, except Lucas himself. Insisting that his deceased wife, Darcy, visits him every night in the form of an angel, Lucas spends his time writing letters to his former Jungian analyst, Karl. It is only when Eli, an eighteen-year-old young man whom the community has ostracized, begins camping out in Lucas’s backyard that an unlikely alliance takes shape and the two embark on a journey to heal their neighbors and, most important, themselves.

From Matthew Quick, the New York Times bestselling author of The Silver Linings Playbook, We Are the Light is an unforgettable novel about the quicksand of grief and the daily miracle of love. The humorous, soul-baring story of Lucas Goodgame offers an antidote to toxic masculinity and celebrates the healing power of art. In this tale that will stay with you long after the final page is turned, Quick reminds us that guardian angels are all around us—sometimes in the forms we least expect.

Weekly Goals 22-7-24

 I managed to get quite a bit of writing done over the weekend and I'm quite happy with the scenes I wrote.  I feel like I may have sorted a few things out in my head about who knows what and that has clarified the way forward for me. 

Means I need to go back and change some stuff further back, but I'll do that later.  I know editing is going to take a long time; it always does.  One of the negatives to writing without much in the way of an outline or plan...

So my goal for this week is to try and write at least one more chapter.  It may not happen - I'm working the next two weekends because our next event is happening over that period.  Plus, the Film Festival starts at the end of July.  I haven't bought a ton of tickets for the Film Festival this year, but I got a ten-trip ticket for Christmas that I've redeemed, so I'm going to at least ten.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 19-7-24

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small Things...

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!

I had two days off and did a bunch of writing on A Stranger to Kindness. I'm at that awful point in drafting where nothing seems to be hitting the page the way I want it to and everything I write feels like it's in the wrong place or happening at the wrong time.  

I know it's all part of the process and that this draft is all about getting the story onto the page and I'll be able to fix it later, but it doesn't feel great.  If feels like I'm not getting it right, that I'm not hitting the beats.  I think I'm struggling a bit with trying to show Harley's inner conflict between what he's internalised, what he's been told and what he's seeing in his new home.

Hopefully I'll be able to get that layered in once I've finished writing the thing...  I'm getting to the meaty stuff now, but can't help thinking that I haven't given the core relationships enough time to develop before getting there.  I guess we'll see how it comes out in the end.  I've written about 35K words, so it's not like I've got a bloated word count.  I can probably write another 10K or so building up those relationships before I need to get to the major turning point, so maybe I'm not in such bad shape.

I hope to get a bunch more writing done over the weekend. The weather looks like it's going to be dreadful, so a good excuse to stay in!

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've read: The Heart's Invisible Furies

A friend at work gave me this to read because she thought I'd enjoy it.  She was right...

It's kind of an epic story in that it spans around 70 years in life of Cyril from his birth out of wedlock in 1940s Ireland to the present day.  In telling the story of this one man, we get to see the way attitudes and ideas have changed over the years. And the ways they have not.

Cyril realises quite young that he's gay, even if he isn't able to communicate what it is he feels when the glamourous young Julian shows up at his house and wants to compare willies.  Cyril's attraction to Julian forms the backbone of his identity, even while Julian seems oblivious to his desires.

With Julian unable (or unwilling) to return his affections, Cyril is forced to seek satisfaction in the only places available to him in the repressed Ireland of the 1950s and 1960s.  It's only after escaping Ireland for Amsterdam that Cyril is finally able to accept himself and the love of another man.

In 1980s New York, that acceptance is turning to fear with the AIDS epidemic ravaging the gay community, yet it isn't AIDS that shatters Cyril's life but a random act of violence.  Broken, he returns to Ireland to try and reconnect with his past and find a way forward.  And in doing so, he may just find the family he's never had before...

I really enjoyed this book.  Cyril was a fascinating character because he is terribly flawed, yet still very relatable.  It was also fascinating to follow the ways attitudes toward homosexuality changed over the period of time, particularly in Ireland with its deep rooted Catholicism.

The author's note at the end was also a fascinating read, so if you decide to read this book, don't skip that!

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb: 

Cyril Avery is not a real Avery or at least that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he?

Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.

At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from – and over his three score years and ten, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more.

In this, Boyne's most transcendent work to date, we are shown the story of Ireland from the 1940s to today through the eyes of one ordinary man. The Heart's Invisible Furies is a novel to make you laugh and cry while reminding us all of the redemptive power of the human spirit.