{"id":876,"date":"2012-10-04T10:58:13","date_gmt":"2012-10-04T17:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=876"},"modified":"2012-10-04T10:58:13","modified_gmt":"2012-10-04T17:58:13","slug":"picture-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=876","title":{"rendered":"Picture this"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bob Moyer took a break from his travels long enough to send another review. I think he had as much fun writing this review as he did reading the book. That’s good for us, because we can read both the review and the book.<\/p>\n

By Robert Moyer<\/p>\n

BEAUTIFUL RUINS. Jess Walter. HarperCollins. 352 pages. $25.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This book just begs to be a flamboyant retro movie in Panavision \u2013\u00a0Zorba The Greek Visits The Valley Of The Dolls <\/em>would be a good working title, with a cast of B-movie stars.<\/p>\n

Pasquale, an old Greek played by Mickey Rourke (with a bad accent), shows up at the offices of Hollywood producer Michael Deane, played by George Hamilton (with bad plastic surgery).\u00a0 He\u2019s looking for the no-longer young starlet who showed up at his \u201cHotel Adequate View\u201d on the Italian Riviera 50 years ago.\u00a0The starlet had a small role in Cleopatra<\/em>, but took a big roll in the hay with Richard Burton, the Beautiful Ruin of the title.<\/p>\n

Deane, now the producer of the successful TV series Hookup<\/em>, was the onsite handler of all the scandal surrounding the movie \u2014Burton (played by Charlie Sheen in a cameo) and Elizabeth Taylor, Eddie Fisher, etc.\u00a0He stashed the actress, Dee Moray (Lindsay Lohan as a young woman, Sally Field as she ages) in Pasquale\u2019s pathetic hotel just down from the trendy Cinque Terre. Then \u2014 life happened.<\/p>\n

Walter wafts us back and forth between 1962 and the present as he puts the puzzle of these lives together with the help of fully realized supporting characters (supply your own casting): the alcoholic ex-GI who shows up at Pasquale\u2019s every year to write his novel but never gets past the first chapter; Deane\u2019s idealistic assistant (Lisa Kudrow \u2014 oops, sorry) who can\u2019t leave her job or her porn-addicted boyfriend; the \u201colder\u201d woman who seduces a young Pasquale; and the second-rate screenwriter with a series about cannibalism to pitch, called Donner<\/em>.\u00a0 Walter skillfully weaves these story pieces into his flip-flopping plot.<\/p>\n

Although the book shows dramatic, even melodramatic possibilities, it is not the least bit cheesy in the reading.\u00a0 It\u2019s a pleasure to watch Walter wrap his story around such an iconic event as Cleopatra<\/em>, and then follow through as he fleshes out the story with such care.\u00a0He uses many devices to convey the story, including the ex-GI\u2019s first chapter, the unedited first chapter of Deane\u2019s autobiography, even the \u201ctreatment\u201d of the Donner<\/em> show, all of which contribute to the unfolding of these lives.<\/p>\n

He also employs some flat out great writing, with a healthy dose of humor.\u00a0 A failed rock and roll singer who plays a big part in the story listens to some street musicians play and realizes, \u201cThe music these kids played was like a centuries-old cathedral; Pat\u2019s lifework had all the lasting power and grace of a trailer.\u201d\u00a0 He writes about Michael Deane\u2019s plastic surgery that \u201cTrying to picture what (he) looked like as a young man in Italy fifty years ago, based on his appearance now, is like standing on Wall Street trying to understand the topography of Manhattan Island before the Dutch arrived.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is rare to find a piece of popular fiction that is so good it\u2019s a pleasure, not a guilty pleasure.\u00a0 Walter has engineered a book in which everyone doesn\u2019t live happily ever after \u2014 they just live, in a fashion that makes for compelling reading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bob Moyer took a break from his travels long enough to send another review. I think he had as much fun writing this review as he did reading the book. That’s good for us, because we can read both the review and the book. By Robert Moyer BEAUTIFUL RUINS. Jess Walter. HarperCollins. 352 pages. $25. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[329,330,328],"class_list":["post-876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-beautiful-ruins","tag-cleopatra","tag-jess-walter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=876"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":878,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876\/revisions\/878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}