PRIVATE LIES is a mesmerizing read, starting with the powerful voice of Ken Kramer in the opening pages. I’m not going to provide a detailed plot summary, other than to say that this novel is a commanding glimpse into the minds of four very distinct characters.
Read more: “Private Lies” Review by Aaron Lazar
I have been trying to figure out how a movie reportedly costing close to two hundred million dollars has failed to find a paying audience. The reviews have been either glowing or certainly respectful.
The enormously talented Martin Scorsese directed the movie based upon a successful children’s book by Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which deals with the adventures of a 12-year-old boy who literally lives within the cavernous confines of a massive Parisian train station in 1931, whose principal chore is to keep the numerous clocks in the station in working order after the death of his drunken uncle, who had been charged with that operation.
Read more: Hugo, I Went
The current memoir by a middle-aged woman named Mimi Alford about her affair with President John F. Kennedy when she was a 19-year-old White House intern heralds a new genre in the book business, Lover Lit.
Mrs. Alford’s “coming out” reveals her 18-month sexual escapade with President Kennedy who, she alleges, took her virginity in the First Lady’s bedroom. Contrived to be self-effacing, the book and its author have received kind reviews and interviews, like the one recently in The New York Times that reveals a gushing bouquet of envy by a writer who appears to fondly wish she, too, had parked her shoes at the foot of Kennedy’s bed, any bed.
Read more: Chick Lit is Dead, Lover Lit is In
You’ve spent months, perhaps years, composing your novel. You’ve read and reread it hundreds of times. You’ve rethought it, rewritten it, and revised it, changed characters, dialogue, and plot lines. Writing it is the most important thing in your life. The writing of your novel has absorbed your attention, almost exclusively. Both your conscious and your subconscious mind have been obsessed with it. You have read parts of it to your friends, family, former teachers. Most think it’s wonderful.
You have finally considered it finished. Armed with optimism and self-confidence, you obtain a list of agents on the Internet and begin to canvas agents. You agonize over whether to send your precious manuscript to one agent at a time or to a number of agents. You choose the first option.
Read more: On Rejection and Renewal: A Note to Aspiring Novelists
At the outset, let me state unequivocally that I have had a lifetime love affair with the movies. The affair spans the golden age of Hollywood films and as evidence of this heartfelt attachment, I can name most of the actors in black and white films, B movies included.
I inherited this addiction from my mother who would take me with her whenever the movies changed their bill, even in the middle of the week when I should have been doing my homework. Her lure was not only the movie itself but the collection of dishes the theaters would give away free to corral their patrons during the dark days of the depression.
Read more: The Movies: A Fading Flame
