My review of Room at the Top, by John Braine

Room at the Top

by John Braine

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

This good old (1957) nostalgic late-night read had me gripped from start to finish. John Braine's gritty post-war British characters are astonishingly true, their strengths believable, their defects authentic, their dialogue the real McCoy.

After studying accountancy as a Prisoner of War, ex-serviceman Joe Lampton leaves his northern English hometown of Dufton, where he grew up a poor orphan after his parents were killed in an air raid. 

Chasing a new life, Joe arrives in nearby Warley to commence his promising new job at the Municipal Treasury. Ambitious to break the archetypal working-class mould, Joe runs with the fast-changing times and sets his sights high, driven by visions of white-collar advancement.

He rents a room from the middle-class Thompson's, a couple in Warley's well-to-do quarter 'The Top' (t'top, in native dialectic terms). Joe Lampton's 'room at the top' is a metaphor for his drive to leave behind the blue-collar 'zombies' of his old life and native town.

The kindly Thompsons, deprived of a son who died at war, take Joe under their wing and treat him like family. They introduce him to their amateur dramatic society where, at weekly evening rehearsals, he befriends childlike Susan Brown, the sole daughter of an influential Warley businessman. Though betrothed to flash Jack Wales, heir to a local family fortune, Susan also quietly succumbs to Joe's pushy wooing. She remains naïve of his motive being partly frivolous opportunism, in his ruthless quest for social elevation, and partly blokey one upmanship against the self-important Jack Wales.

At these same weekly rehearsals, Joe also becomes acquainted with the older, married Alice Aisgill, who usually gets the company's leading lady roles. Though she initially plays the ice queen, Alice and Joe soon find mutual stimulation in intelligent conversation, away from the others, after rehearsals, in the nearby pub. They begin a covert sexual relationship, enacted mostly in the borrowed flat of one of Alice's actress girlfriends. One secret weekend, at a country cottage, smooth talking Joe convinces Alice this is more than physical. She is won over.

Though Joe does love Alice more passionately, he has also, meanwhile, successfully seduced the wide-eyed and willing young Susan Brown, who falls pregnant. 

As rumour erupts of Joe's adulterous affair with Alice, his reputation is compromised, threatening his prospects in Warley. His only option of keeping Alice would be elopement with her, away from her husband and Warley, leaving behind Susan and his career opportunities. 

Meanwhile with scandal looming, Susan's father, concerned for his family reputation, summonses Joe to a private business meeting. He presses Joe do the decent thing by marrying the pregnant Susan, adding, for incentive, a job offer worth a thousand a pounds year. The one stipulation is that Joe sever all ties with Alice Aisgill.

Forced to choose between love and money, Joe must sacrifice one relationship to retain the other. The outcome for the devastated woman he doesn't choose is tragic. Guilt ridden and remorseful, Joe turns to drink in a rage of self-loathing.

Room at the Top's hero intermittently morphs into anti-hero throughout, via the twists and turns of his wrestling conscience and ego. Empathising with him, we also recognise his shortcomings too. His older lover, Alice Aisgill, is entrancing, enigmatic and breathtakingly believable. She was immortalised on the big screen by the wonderful Simon Signoret, whose smouldering portrayal earned her an Academy Ward (1959), then again on the small screen by the fabulous Maxine Peake (2012), that miniseries winning a BAFTA. 

In the same period bundle as Stan Barstow's A Kind of Loving and Nell Dunn's Up the Junction (both similarly cinematised), this was a genre that gained swift popularity then achieved a sort of cult status as it just as rapidly dated. The post-war era, one of rapidly altering morals and class boundaries, is superbly captured in these then controversial novels. This is one of the best.

No great classic, in my opinion, but a broody, meaty read with a granite edge that leaves an indelible impression.

Quite unforgettable.

My review of Lost Empires, by J.B. Priestley

Lost Empires

by J.B. Priestley

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

I love this 1965 J. B. Priestley novel so much I've read it four times. A young man's peep into a smoke-swirling, footlit world as he verges on adulthood, this is classy, intriguing and sad to put down when finished.

In the last months of peace before World War I, ambitious young painter-cum-clerk Richard Herncastle's mother's dies. Not yet of age, he is taken under the wing of his maternal uncle Nick Ollanton, known publicly as 'Ganga Dun, the greatest conjurer on the English stage'. 

Leaving his dull office job to join Uncle Nick's act, Richard meets his team and the other touring 'artistes' on the bill, a boozy, nomadic troupe comprised of dancers, comedians, jugglers and so on. They tour Britain performing on the legendary soon-to-vanish Empire variety theatre circuit.

Good looking young Herncastle sees all of life from backstage in music hall variety, just as his uncle has promised. He learns the ropes of stagecraft, falls in love with a depraved beauty, sees a long-lost Britain in a way future generations will only hear about and even becomes privy to an intriguing murder investigation. Richard comes of age in 1914, just as the greatest disappearing act of all is looming: society as it would never again be known.

This fictional old man's fond retelling of his remarkable youth never fails to satisfy, no matter how many times I return to it, if only to flick through and browse my favourite episodes. The haunting smell of greasepaint emanates from the pages of an evocative tale about a special time and profession.

The multi award nominated 1986 miniseries featured Sir Laurence Olivier's penultimate screen performance as brilliant comedian-in-decay Harry Burrard, with an early romantic lead casting of chirpy, fresh faced Colin Firth alongside Pamela Stephenson.

Proud Yorkshire man Priestley famously snubbed the offer of becoming a lord the year Lost Empires was published. He gladly accepted his hometown, the city of Bradford, granting him Freedom of the City in 1973. He was also honoured by the universities of Bradford and Birmingham. Priestley eventually became a member of the Order of Merit in 1977 and served as a British delegate to UNESCO conferences.

I highly recommend this rare literary jewel, especially for lovers of theatre, history, nostalgia, vintage whodunnits or just die-hard J. B. Priestley fans.

My review of Elizabeth: The Life of Elizabeth Taylor, by Alexander Walker

Elizabeth: The Life of Elizabeth Taylor

by Alexander Walker

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Having picked up, opened, then flung aside many a sensationalised book on this woman, I was relieved to come across this very readable one.

Elizabeth was loved by not just her public but within the entertainment industry too. She earned her respect and survived much harsh press throughout her life. Such professional longevity is a rare and special thing in this game.

Of course, no biography would be complete without the obligatory affairs and broken marriages, but Walker at least tries to focus on Taylor's career (putting her relationships into context with that).

Here was a great star, tagged the world's most beautiful woman (how many people have worn it?) which is always tough to live up to after a while, when yet another 'the world's most beautiful woman' steps into the spotlight and winks at you to stand aside. Then everyone scribbles furiously about you in the tabloids when you try to get the odd, discrete chin tuck or eye lift.

When self-preservation became more than just being about looking gorgeous, Taylor's gruelling work ethic extended to her addiction rehabilitation efforts. Here she nobly led the way for many a diva. The Betty Ford must have benefited immeasurably.

Her earlier life, heyday and many media controversies gradually turned her into a more private person, as if compensating for the over exposure. She nevertheless remained a generous soul, one who cared deeply for friends and gave of herself freely when she saw fit.

From a young age, Elizabeth developed a devil-may-care streak. She had the capacity to shock and impress simultaneously. She made remarkably few enemies - ultimately, not even Debbie Reynolds. Her later off-screen work was admirable, as she balanced her perfumery juggernaut with needy, worthy causes few of her contemporaries would touch.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and would consider almost any Alexander Walker book well worth a go.

My review of Tales of the Wide Caribbean, by Jean Rhys

Tales of the Wide Caribbean

by Jean Rhys

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Published six years after her death, when she was still highly acclaimed for her award-winning Wide Sargasso Sea (1969), this collection focuses, as its title states, on the same part of the world, her Caribbean homeland. 

Some of the material had only been published in the better literary journals and newspapers, some of it had cropped up in earlier collections and some had never seen the light of day.

Those who read Jean's posthumously published unfinished autobiography Smile Please will recognise fictionalised glimpses of her formative years in these short stories (many have insisted that all of her fiction was in fact her memoirs encrypted).

Regardless of whether the sources were autobiographical, her storytelling is hypnotic, enthralling. We are there, on her late-Victorian/early Edwardian Dominica, feeling the sun, smelling the ocean and exotic flora, hearing echoes of the island's inhabitants, empathising with this soul-baring raconteur. This is probably an old Jean Rhys remembering an extraordinary girlhood. Her characterisations are mesmerising, her words and sentences haunting.

Those unacquainted with Rhys' wider body of work may find less meaning in these stories than do her fans. But for this devotee, these almost filmic tales are priceless for their realism and authenticity.

As meticulously penned as all her material and painstakingly compiled in her wake, this is truly the icing on the cake for any Jean Rhys reader.

My review of Blood Sisters: The Women Behind The Wars Of The Roses, by Sarah Gristwood

Blood Sisters: The Women Behind The Wars Of The Roses

by Sarah Gristwood

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Framing this period as a female saga has become a popular theme. This example, conceptually sharp and intriguing, stands higher than some of recent years.

My usual history reading centres on the pre- and post- Tudor periods, which offers context for the popular, multidimensional Tudor period itself. My usual history reading also often centres on the female players, invariably more humanly depicted than the stick-like male players and so more accessible.

Women in non-fiction and fiction alike make for better drama (e.g. who is the more fascinating, Henry VIII or his six wives?). We hear not of 'drama kings' only drama queens. They make for more fascinating studies than their men. Their social positioning at that time necessitated limitations both subtle and severe in formal power structures, creating complex tensions.

This typically narrowed the women's options: to politically scheming, under the guise of marital and maternal dutifulness. With notable exceptions, this usually required more silent anguish, patience, sagacity and prolonged focus, with little or no outside counsel, than most men could muster. (We thankfully also encounter the token termagants here and there, to fire things up). Survival often required them to become devious, thick-skinned creatures.

Sarah Gristwood's take on these murky politics, times and events is presented in a more studious, less 'popular' style than others it sits amongst. (I relish both styles, having fun and frivolity with the latter.) Gristwood prioritises erudition over sensation, without becoming overtly dry. Though I have read both more entertaining and more impenetrable versions of these events, this one strikes an attractive chord of balance.

The Cousins' War, or Wars of the Roses, is a tangled web that has left many put off by its hefty timeframe and complexity. Many a lay historian has skimmed over it, drawn to the more popular Tudors, only to end up devoid of vital context. Such works as this help address that issue.

Here we enjoy candid close ups of, for example, the proud and tempestuous Cecily Neville, wife of Richard 3rd Duke of York, who narrowly lost her grand opportunity of becoming queen when her husband died at the Battle of Wakefield. Cecily's illustrious Plantagenet brood included not only King Edward IV, but usurping Shakespearian villain Richard III whose fall at the Battle of Bosworth Field made way for the Tudors. Cecily's ill-fated third son was the ill-fated Duke of Clarence, whose 'private execution' was long rumoured to have involved drowning in a butt of Malmsey wine.

Juxtaposed against hard bitten Yorkist matriarch Cecily is her notably less aristocratic new daughter-in-law, the legendary beauty and romantic figurehead Elizabeth Woodville. Already widowed with children, Elizabeth married Cecily's eldest son Edward IV in secret, becoming his queen consort to Cecily's chagrin and widespread courtly disapproval. Accused by her adversaries of bewitching Edward into marriage, it was from this great-grandmother that Queen Elizabeth I got her name and her fiery red hair.

Then there's the pious, erudite and parentally ambitious Lady Margaret Beaufort, of impeccable ancient stock and mother of Henry Tudor (Henry VII). Her web of machinations probably included wooing her husband Lord Stanley, previously a Yorkist player, to side ultimately with the Lancastrians, ensuring Henry VII's victory. With her son's rise to monarchy Lady Margaret became England's first lady, outranking even her daughter-in-law queen consort Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville.

Shadowed, as always, by her fellow central female characters is Cecily Neville's grandniece Anne Neville, daughter of Warwick 'the Kingmaker', tossed from suitor to suitor, from the Lancastrian to the Yorkist sides, then dead at twenty-eight. As wife of the deposed King Henry VI's Lancastrian heir, Edward of Westminster, Anne became Princess of Wales and daughter-in-law to the fierce Margaret of Anjou. Widowed young when Prince Edward died at the Battle of Tewkesbury, Anne later became the Yorkist Duchess of Gloucester and then Queen of England as the wife of King Richard III who, it was rumoured, poisoned Anne in preparation to marry his niece Elizabeth of York - a marriage which never eventuated due to Richard's fall in battle to Henry Tudor, who would marry Elizabeth himself, ending the thirty year conflict between his house of Lancaster and hers of York. Traditionally downplayed by historians due to a lack of material, Anne is sadly once more presented in a ghostly light, though Gristwood no doubt suffered the same drawbacks as others, faced with the dearth of personal detail about Anne to draw from.

After the immense popularity of the dramatised 'White Queen' TV series, based on Philippa Gregory's series of novels about this same circle of women, any keen reader of this period would be seriously missing out by excluding 'Blood Sisters' from their non-fiction.  

Highly recommend this important book, especially to those seeking to distinguish the hard facts from the syrupy folklore of this complex episode of English history without becoming numbed by the convoluted series of dates and battles that fill so many non-fictional accounts.

My review of Audrey: Her Real Story, by Alexander Walker

Audrey: Her Real Story

by Alexander Walker

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

 

Another great job by Alexander Walker, this story covers the life an intriguing, beautiful and talented woman.

Not the easiest of subjects for anyone to document, Ms. Hepburn had something almost indescribable - I disagree that she broke through on acting ability alone, but then few of her calibre have. She was breathtakingly beautiful and had a rare persona of innocence, naivety and sincerity that moviegoers found jawdroppingly enigmatic.

Audrey had many lingering demons to live with and held them off admirably and modestly throughout her great career.

Born in Brussels, she grew up in Belgium, England, the Netherlands, including German-occupied Arnhem, in WWII. She studied ballet in Amsterdam, moving to London in 1948 to continue her ballet training and appeared in the chorus of West End musical theatre shows. Here she paid her dues, learned the ropes and worked her way into the industry, in a typically honest, hardworking, decent Audrey Hepburn-like way. So came her well-deserved, if lucky, break.

We remember her most for her enchanting performances in 'Gigi', 'Roman Holiday', 'Sabrina', 'The Nun's Story', 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' 'Charade', 'My Fair Lady' and 'Wait Until Dark'. She deservingly won Academy, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony and BAFTA wards for her fine and unforgettable work.

After gently, gracefully backing away from her glittering film career she became a notable philanthropist and humanitarian, doing many greater and what she considered more important things than movies, resulting in her Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.

Like other great celluloid goddesses, she died not terribly old, ending her days in Switzerland.

This is a good biography about an unusual woman who we end up liking and respecting for far more than her movie work.

My review of Fabulous Nobodies, by Lee Tulloch

Fabulous Nobodies

by Lee Tulloch

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

This hysterical read had me giggling like a schoolgirl, quite some years ago. Laugh? I nearly bought a round. Fabulous Nobodies is described as 'a lighthearted yet devastatingly accurate social satire about the hip young fashion slaves of New York City's East Village in 1983'. 

The screen adaptation was recently optioned, to be directed by R.J. Cutler, acclaimed director of the fashion documentary The September Issue, featuring Anna Wintour

I happened across the paperback as I sifted through pre-loved fashion in my local op shop one melancholy morning and was instinctively drawn to the cover. Snatched it up for a song, took it under my wing and whisked it off home in the rain. It was ravenously devoured with a bottle of wine and a funny cigarette.

In retrospect I clearly turned to it for remedial purposes when events in my life were so intensely gloomy that my more serious reading material (particularly my edge worn Jean Rhys collection) was a definite no-no.

For years I worked and partied with real people like Really, nightclub 'door bitches' who thought they ruled the world and had a duty to keep naffly attired trash out.

Might have been imagining things, maybe it was my 'medication', but seem to recall Really's fabulous little frocks having some rather camp, ongoing daily dialogue with each other in their closet (?)

Silly, silly, silly, but there's nothing wrong with that occasionally. Laughter is good for the soul - but, as Really would no doubt caution us, watch out for those laugh lines!

Once you 'get' the intent of the silliness you begin to see through it into witty, intelligent, well written satire ahead of is time.

People have called it pre-chick lit chick lit but I beg to differ - far from some of the churned out formulaic pulp that ended up in the chick lit pile, this is original, clever and unique.

I flicked through it again just recently when rummaging through my cupboard and mused to myself that it had not dated. Lee Tulloch is a smart, entertaining writer who seemingly saw no need to linger in this genre once she had worked this little gem out of her system.

I'll be at the movie with bells on. Bravo! Encore!

My review of A Gambling Man: Charles II's Restoration Game, by Jenny Uglow

A Gambling Man: Charles II's Restoration Game

by Jenny Uglow

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Restoration monarch Charles II I had long procrastinated reading on, until this splendid book appeared before me. At once admiring this elegant product, its cover art and back page snippets, I was compelled to take it home.

This great grandson of the executed Mary, Queen of Scots and son of the executed Charles I was invited to take the throne following the Interregnum.

Known as the Merry Monarch, his court was a den of hedonism, his subjects loving his looseness after the puritan Cromwellian protectorate, or de facto Republic. He sired a dozen acknowledged bastards by seven mistresses.

Charles II was not merely the most infamous royal sleazebag of them all, he was a respected patron of the arts and sciences and had his work cut out in restoring England's shaky monarchy and seeing his kingdom through several great disasters. 

His watch saw London's Great Plague eliminate approximately 100,000 people, thinning the capital's population. Also the Great Fire of London, famously ignited in Pudding Lane and destroying over 13,000 houses, 80-odd churches and old St. Paul's Cathedral. The fire's aftermath saw Sir Christopher Wren add his splendid architectural mark to London's rebuilding, initiated by Chares II.

Charles also reinstated the theatre, initiating two acting companies and legalising acting for women, after a long puritanical spell wherein theatre was considered frivolous and banned altogether.

Leaving no legitimate heir, he was succeeded by his brother, the less popular, more zealously Catholic James II, whose short reign reached an abrupt halt when he was overthrown for producing a Catholic heir and suspected of aiming to steer then staunchly Protestant England religiously backwards.

I enjoyed studying this lovable, decadent, cultured rogue, whose mistresses included legendary orange-seller-turned-actress Nell Gwynn and notorious Barbara Villiers who bore five of his royal bastards.

While the Restoration is still not one of my favourite periods, Jenny Uglow lured me in, guided me well and made it accessible in a way no other has.

Recommended reading.

My review of Edward VI: The Lost King of England, by Chris Skidmore

Edward VI: The Lost King of England

by Chris Skidmore

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Chris Skidmore makes courageous choices addressing topics challenging due to limited popular appeal (his later book, Death and The Virgin, I thoroughly enjoyed). Edward VI's reign we see more through the prism of important religious development than being drawn to the boy king's persona. That's understandable, this being a short reign.

The obvious question is why this short reign is so eclipsed by 'Bloody' Mary I's even shorter one immediately following it? Answer: Mary was the first queen regnant, a mature and tormented woman with a dramatic personal history, a Catholic zealot who burnt heretics - for better or worse, a more colourful character to grasp.

Edward might have become a fascinating figure, but his meagre measure of life allowed little opportunity for noteworthy character building. Formidably well educated, he was also the first English monarch raised a Protestant. Intensely conscious of his status as God's anointed, he was pompous for his years, even castigating his much older intransigent half-sister Mary for flaunting her staunch Catholicism. 

He conversely favoured his other half-sister Elizabeth, Mary's junior, who soundly rejected Catholicism.

He was similarly fond of his widowed stepmother Queen Catherine Parr, herself a keener reformist than her husband Henry VIII had been and who, in her early widowhood, married Edward's uncle Thomas Seymour, scheming brother of Lord Protector Somerset. This would have perplexed the boy, leaving him split around personal and official approval, family loyalty and royal favour.

Family rumour and scandal were persistently laid at Edward's feet, often intended to agitate the boy and tug at him to side with these incestuous court factions.

Touches of his tyrannical father glinted hopelessly through Edward's pasty adolescent veneer. He then became famously frail and sickly, confined and bedbound, more than ever under the spell of his scheming counsellors.

He expressed frustration by his powerlessness as a minor whose governing was done by a Regency Council while he, whose personal seal was required, felt personally responsible for so much. This primarily involved overseeing contentious religiopolitical completions his devout father had shied away from: despite his severance from Rome and Dissolution of Monasteries, Henry VIII had balked at extending his Church of England into one signifying a fully-fledged Protestant state. Responsibility fell into Edwards hands to add imperative final touches like abolition of the Mass and clerical celibacy, imposing compulsory services in English, etc.

These factors explain why Edward's reign is characterised and remembered through his advisors who steered such legislation, especially his Seymour uncle Edward, Duke of Somerset and then John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. Orbiting him like vultures was a fractious cast of royals and nobles far more memorable than Edward himself because of their longer and more complex and sensational lives.

In his frailty, conscious of his own mortality, he became increasingly malleable and vulnerable to diplomatic pressure. From his deathbed he was easily persuaded to sign over his kingdom to his Protestant cousin Lady Jane Grey, daughter-in-law of Edward's de facto regent, the dynastically ambitious Protestant John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland whose persuasion centred on Edward keeping his 'bastard' half-sisters Mary and Elizabeth from ruling, the eldest especially, being herself Catholic. Regardless how easily persuaded, Edward would again have felt torn by family loyalty, religion and kingly duty in this final act, preparing to meet his maker. 

It's a pity to then have him eclipsed in history by the 'nine days queen' episode of Jane Grey who usurped Mary only to be overthrown herself. Edward becomes almost forgotten due to Mary's 'bloody' reign and religious reversion to Roman Catholicism, her marriage to Philip of Spain, her persecution of her half-sister Elizabeth who was sent to the Tower and almost never lived let alone ruled. Mary's humiliating phantom pregnancy adds to her infamy, as does her begrudging bequeath of the crown to Protestant half-sister Elizabeth in the absence of offspring. The latter's subsequent eponymous golden age again hold's poor Edward's place back in the Tudor shadows, forever outshone by his mighty father and legendary siblings.

Not everyone's favourite reign to read on, this is important history to understand, contextually. Chris Skidmore has my greatest respect for taking on projects his more popular contemporaries veer away from to stay safely within the established bounds of popular reading.

This, like Skidmore's other above-mentioned book, is well researched, written and documented. I'd like to see more of his clever biographical ideas materialise.

My review of Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford, by Donald Spoto

Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford

by Donald Spoto

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Donald Spoto is one of my favourite Hollywood biographers. I've read five Crawford biographies and find it impossible to rate one higher than the others. Inescapably, many details are rehashed across all of them. This one I liked slightly more than the others I've read. If I were recommending which ones to include in your coverage (there are so many), this would be near the top of my list.

Joan became such a contentious biographical topic in the aftermath of 'Mommie Dearest' that her apologists closed ranks and, understandably, became hyper-defensive, rallying to restore her good name - to such an extent that they sounded at times to collectively lose objectivity. 

That's fine, any intelligent reader can see past this, we feel the passion of the authors which makes for good reading in itself.

I like to make my own mind up about the subjects of biographies and usually can. 

That Joan Crawford was no saint becomes clear enough after covering a few biographies, that she was no monster either is also clear. She was a fascinating woman and a great, great star.

My review of Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis, by Ed Sikov

Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis

by Ed Sikov

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

As a woman she was renowned for being earthier than her professional nemesis Joan Crawford and boasted of that, making her perhaps the more arrogant of the two yet no less adorable. 

I've read five Bette Davis biographies and find it impossible to rate one higher than the others. Inescapably, many details are rehashed across all of them. This one I liked, not much more or less than the others I've read. However, if I were recommending which ones to include in your coverage (there are so many), this would make my list.

All the fabulous comical caricatures have redefined our memories of this wonderful actress. Just watch her actual films, though, and you'll rediscover that she was nowhere near as over the top as you might have recalled, she had far greater dramatic subtlety and nuance than her impersonators have led us to believe.

I like to make my own mind up about the subjects of biographies and usually can. 

That Bette Davis was no saint becomes clear enough after covering a few biographies; that she was no monster either is also clear. She was a fascinating woman and a great, great star.

My review of The Heir Apparent: A Life of Edward VII, the Playboy Prince, by Jane Ridley

The Heir Apparent: A Life of Edward VII, the Playboy Prince

by Jane Ridley

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

One of the most readable 'Bertie' biographies I've found.

Although the title suggests this may focus largely on his love life, this tasteful biography is something far from that. Even so, while he admired and deeply respected his publicly adored and stone-deaf queen consort, Alexandra, he did intimately liaise with over 50 other women, his most famous mistresses being actresses Lillie Langtry and Sarah Bernhardt, Lady Randolph Churchill, mother of Winston Churchill, and Alice 'Mrs' Keppel. These affairs are soundly documented by Jane Ridley, who never resorts to sensationalism.

Not an academically minded youth, he was prone to schoolroom tantrums, being such a fish out of water. His derisive, perpetually disappointed mother, Queen Victoria, wished he was more like his father, Prince Albert, for whom she famously mourned for much of her long reign. So determinedly did she keep Bertie out of her royal business that he had little but leisure to occupy himself with throughout his protracted princely years. He learnt statecraft from the wings, having it down pat by the time of his late succession.

It was a rapidly changing world over which Edward came to preside, and he excelled in mediating between clashing expansionist powers, becoming nicknamed 'the Peacemaker'. Through his parents, his wife, his eight siblings' dynastic marriages and those of his six offspring, he was related to virtually every branch of European royalty.

His epoch is one which lingers in the collective living memory, with seniors still cherishing faded family pictures along with anecdotes verbally passed down through parents from grandparents and great grandparents - this was Queen Elizabeth II's great grandfather. His demise marked the end of an era though. Society would change abruptly, dramatically and irreversibly as WWI loomed.

A fine biography on an interesting king who got to the throne late in life yet whose decade there remains a distinct one.

My review of The First Queen of England: The Myth of "Bloody Mary", by Linda Porter

The First Queen of England: The Myth of "Bloody Mary"

by Linda Porter

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

'Bloody Mary' Tudor was for centuries maligned from all sides. A focus of anti-Catholic prejudice, she was reviled for her Marian persecutions which saw 280 martyred Protestant 'heretics' burned at the stake. 

This was unremarkable in an age that saw religious persecution from both sides sweep reformation Europe. Mary's father before her, sister after her and Habsburg cousins alongside her oversaw similar barbaric acts of state, each in no short measure yet over many more years on their thrones - centring on comparably more diluted pictures of what might today be tagged 'tyranny'. 

Particularly notable was the rate at which Mary's victims fell in the few short years she reigned. 

Her detractors have argued that, had she lived and ruled longer, burning religious dissenters at that same rabid rate, her record could have become outstanding on the basis of numbers alone. Yet hypothetical estimates, no matter how oft reiterated by anti-Catholic commentators, can never translate into historical fact. 

Her apologists have maintained that, steering such horrific policies were lawmakers, ministers and parliamentarians rather than any sole monarch - especially not the staid Mary Tudor who, as England's first anointed female ruler, had no predecessors to follow the example of, relying girlishly upon her male decision makers.

Yet rulers of Mary's time held the final authority to accept or reject any policy.

Perhaps the bottom line is that, regardless how classically feminine or modest her regal persona, she had throughout her life displayed such superlative survival instincts and bravery as to well match her majestic pedigree, culminating in the sheer hardiness of successfully fighting for her throne against all odds.

And whatever her perceived passive nature, her victims still burned, at that notoriously high rate. 

This book sets out to rationalise Mary's deeds and foibles by examining her tragic personal background and those challenging events, personal and political, influencing her reign. 

As England's first queen regnant (excluding the disputed reigns of Lady Jane Grey and the Empress Matilda), she endured the 16th century chauvinism of her ministers and chroniclers, with their sexist attitudes continuing down the centuries by her many male biographers.

Outshone in posterity by her Protestant younger half-sister Elizabeth I, this monarch of only five years, brought down to us as dour, standoffish and neurotic, has stood little chance of a fair hearing to modern generations – until now. 

The fourth and penultimate Tudor monarch, remembered for her restoration of Roman Catholicism after the short-lived Protestant reign of her half-brother Edward VI, Mary famously married Philip of Spain against considerable diplomatic advice to the contrary and despite public opposition to a foreign king consort.

Though many years his senior and initially against marrying at all, Mary adored and devoted herself to Philip, who showed little more than contempt towards her, remaining mostly oversees on business. In this loveless marriage she remained childless, dying young and alone after a series of phantom pregnancies.

Elizabeth I devotees will forever know Mary as her younger sister's jailer, as they read of young Princess Elizabeth's time in the Tower of London following her unproven links to various failed rebellions to overthrow Mary and replace her with Elizabeth.   

Linda Porter demonstrates, at least in this book's first two-thirds to three-quarters, what a talented biographer she is. Her work sparkles for much of the piece. Her empathic approach, her commendable eye for detail, bring the milieu and its inhabitants beautifully to life, transporting the reader there to judge for ourselves. 

The sense of being 'guided' through whom, what and why we ought to judge, is apparent throughout, though at first seemingly benign. Porter is protective of Queen Mary like a lioness of her cubs, with only the scantest, tokenistic acknowledgement of her shortcomings. 

This partisanship, whilst ever endearing, develops to the point of conspicuity in parts, raising the fundamental question of balance. 

Not the first sympathetic take on Mary Tudor I have read, this is one of the most benevolent, verging on sounding agenda driven.  Though I enjoyed it immensely, I have two criticisms:

Firstly, the book's last quarter or even third lost its momentum, with those dull patches inevitable to such detailed books extending to drawn out passages penned seemingly just for the sake of listing, rather than wasting, every last ounce of miscellaneous detail researched. 

This becomes exasperating towards the book's conclusion, countering an otherwise brilliant telling. This flaw, however, is not uncommon in this increasingly popular genre, with each author competing to cram in the most arbitrary detail, often haphazardly in patches.

My other criticism is that I felt that the author, as a strident apologist of Bloody Mary and her destructive religion in that era, overstated her case throughout. There is a point to this – to counteract the literary destructiveness for so long piled upon this poor queen, who clearly had her good side. The second half of book's title, The Myth of "Bloody Mary", indicates this as being the book's semi raison d'être. 

This was, after all, the only daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon and a granddaughter of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. She had to have had some inherent greatness and indeed this was seen in her oratory prowess and her bravery in claiming the throne by force after it being so unjustly snatched from her by hostile forces driven by the politics of religion. 

She was also an irrefutably kind and merciful figure – except when it came to religious dissent. Even most of her worst detractors she pardoned on assuming her throne.

We read about her torturous youth, bastardized and disinherited from the line of succession after her parents' history making divorce. About her enforced estrangement from her only close ally, her demoted and ostracized mother Queen Catherine of Aragon, under King Henry's cruel orders. We understand how this was all because of her half-sister Elizabeth's mother, Anne Boleyn. How Mary, in adulthood, saw Anne Boleyn in Elizabeth.

Her many psychosomatic illnesses are well documented and explained. She was indeed a melancholy younger figure before ultimately transcending her sorrows to triumph and take rule. Yet even then, her brief time in power was marred by heartache, right down to the loss of Calais to France, from which she was said to never recover.

Few, on true reflection, could not feel for Mary Tudor the woman, whatever her faults as a queen. Such is the compassionate footing of this biography, which aims to kill off the unjust legend of that bitter religious extremist so long portrayed in books like this. (Other recent biographers too have become kinder in their treatment of this queen).

Yet the overall effect of Linda Porter's unabashedly biased approach is to sound almost unbalanced. The reader becomes wary of being spun a propagandist commentary rather than the more rounded picture we expect from well-formed biographies.

That said, it should be noted that history's most noteworthy commentators, those from the opposing side of this classic propagandist divide, are equally guilty of this transgression. 

There is no such thing as an impartial account in this genre – any such dispassionate efforts, so dry and soulless, can only be relegated to school textbook shelves. What makes any such work so heartfelt and gripping is not its indifference but the passion with which it is presented. Such is the key ingredient of an entertaining read, whether fiction or fact.

Despite its glaring subjectivity, which I see as standard in good historic biography, I loved this book. 

Recommended reading.

My review of The Lost Weekend, by Charles Jackson

The Lost Weekend

by Charles Jackson

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

This had me glued from the outset. I had seen the 1945 Billy Wilder movie, starring Ray Milland and Jane Wyman, which was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won four.

Charles R. Jackson's first novel published in 1944, was a best-seller, receiving rave reviews. This breakthrough account, for its era, depicts the downward spiral of an alcoholic binge. Set in the rundown Manhattan of 1936, we follow a few days in the life of Don Birnam, an alcoholic wannabe author.

Increasingly desperate for booze funds he tries stealing a woman's purse in a bar and is humiliatingly ejected. After much further ado over pawning his typewriter, he has an accident, resurfacing in a detox ward. Perhaps the only thing between Birnam and death is his girlfriend Helen, who tolerates his behaviour out of loyalty and love. Recovering from his 'Lost Weekend' Birnam contemplates killing Helen's maid for her liquor cabinet key. After his inevitable hair of the dog, he crawls back into bed wondering, 'Why did they make such a fuss?'

Sometimes seen as American literature's seminal addiction memoir, the novel also infers Birnam is latently gay, tormented by a homoerotic college incident. This taboo element of those times was, naturally, omitted from Wilder's screen adaptation.

There is no redemption at the outcome, but for me this is a good thing, the voice of deterrence, the warning bell to avoid this path in life if you can.

Another reviewer cites among her comparisons Jean Rhys's Good Morning Midnight, one of my favourite reads by my all-time favourite writer. I'm naturally biased in opining that The Lost Weekend comes nowhere close to Good Morning Midnight in literary terms, but agree that the plot is close. Both books were penned around the same part of the twentieth century. Rhys's almost poetic work is all encompassing in its depth, with far subtler dramatic scope. Hers is less a warning signal than a work of fine art, a depiction more moving in its wryness and indifference, of the same downward spiral. But for fast, gritty paperback fiction this is one of the best of its genre. Bang this out in, literally, a lost weekend.

I perceived strong descriptive parallels between this and Lillian Roth's hard-hitting memoir I'll Cry Tomorrow with its incisive look at the practising alcoholic's horrors. Roth's cosier, more optimistic conclusion and message of hope is absent from The Lost Weekend's noirish last word.

A gritty read whose message will never date: beware the lurking quagmire of this horrendous condition so many fall foul to as they approach it with eyes wide shut.

My review of Carol, by Patricia Highsmith

Carol

by Patricia Highsmith

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Much has been written about this novel's background and author in recent times, most notably since the release of director Todd Haynes' exquisite screen adaptation. Out of nowhere emerged a storm of profiteering posthumous Patricia Highsmith biographers, echoed or contradicted by as many self-proclaimed lay aficionados and of course proponents of same-sex marriage. 

Their politically timely discourse catapulted her already popular enough novel to a mainstream status she never dreamt of it attaining (making money she will never see), while making claims she can never confirm or deny concerning her literary impetus. Whilst it seems a waste of words recapping all of that here, I wholeheartedly concede that this lesbian love story's history is as captivating as the narrative itself. 

If, like me, you value style over substance, then Carol will grab you by the throat, though the substance is present too, in bucket loads. The tension of its pace combined with its evocative imagery I found beguiling.

The premise is simple and insightful: 

Two women fall in love in McCarthyism era America, when same-sex love is deemed a sickness and its fulfilment anti-American. 

The plot unfolds thus:

Therese, a lonesome young theatre set design aspirant, is in Manhattan chasing a career break. She neither loves, nor likes sleeping with, her boyfriend, Richard. One tedious day at a department store she works at, Therese becomes infatuated by a dazzling female customer in her thirties. The woman, Carol, gives Therese her address for purchase delivery. 

Therese sends Carol a Christmas card. Carol, going through a divorce, responds. They initiate a liaison which, for Therese, becomes an obsession which the jealous Richard derides as a 'schoolgirl crush'. But Therese knows she feels love.

Carol's husband, Harge, grows suspicious of Therese, who he finds at Carol's New Jersey home (Carol having earlier told Harge of her brief fling with her best girlfriend, Abby). Harge takes custody of his and Carol's daughter Rindy, controlling Carol's parental access as the divorce proceeds. 

To escape the unpleasantness, Carol takes Therese on a road trip out West, while they explore their mutual passion.

They discover a private investigator is tailing them, hired by Harge to gather sordid divorce evidence. They find he had bugged the first hotel room they made love in. Carol confronts him, demanding he hand over any evidence against her. She bribes him for some recordings, but he warns he has sent others to Harge. 

Aware she will lose custody of Rindy if she stays now with Therese, Carol leaves Therese behind, returning to New York to fight for Rindy's custody. However, evidence of Carol's lesbian infidelity is so solid she surrenders, preventing an airing in court. She grants Harge full custody of Rindy, settling for limited parental access herself.

Unaware of this outcome, the broken and disillusioned Therese returns to NYC to begin anew. Soon approached again by Carol, they meet, but the once-bitten Therese snubs Carol's offer of cohabitation. They head towards separate evening engagements. 

After an awkward flirtation at a party that night, Therese backtracks to find a consequently rapturous Carol. They presumably live happily ever after. 

The End.

So, conceptually not so unlike JD Salinger's book The Catcher in the Rye (published a year before in 1951), being largely a young protagonist's road journey juxtaposed against their internal voyage of self-discovery. Salinger's, of course, is narrated in the first person, concerns only the one central character/narrator and is steered by no same-sex romance. Carol is in the third person, from besotted protagonist Therese's point of view. 

Patricia Highsmith draws from one of her most intense affairs, with wealthy American socialite Virginia Kent Catherwood, who she had met in NYC in 1944. This is therefore more than semi-autobiographical, with largely just fictionalised name keys salvaging the piece from being a blatant memoir of, for its day, potentially libellous scope. 

In the book's telling 'Afterword', Highsmith discloses her 1948 inspiration for the novel. She, like the story's protagonist Therese, worked fleetingly as a casual 'Christmas rush' doll salesgirl in a major Manhattan department store's toy section (Bloomingdales, in Highsmith's real-life case). 

One morning an elegant, enigmatic looking blonde woman in a fur coat drifted towards the doll counter, uncertain whether to buy a doll or something else. Highsmith helped and served her, taking her name and address for delivery to an adjacent state. After the woman departed, Highsmith felt: 

'... swimmy in the head near to fainting, yet at the same time uplifted, as if I had seen a vision.'

On arriving home to her apartment that night Highsmith who, like Theresa, lived alone, wrote out: 

' ... an idea, a plot, a story about the blondish and elegant woman in the fur coat. I wrote some eight pages in longhand in my then current notebook or cahier. This was the entire story of The Price of Salt, as Carol was then called. It flowed from my pen as if from nowhere – beginning, middle and end. It took me about two hours, perhaps less.'

The next morning Highsmith developed chickenpox and fell into a fever, concluding that one of the toy department's many visiting children at the store had infected her. Prioritising her health over all else, she handed in her notice at the store and shelved writing out The Price of Salt. 

Several years later, established as a Harper & Bros 'suspense writer' with Strangers on a Train (1950), Highsmith attained wider recognition when Alfred Hitchcock made a 1950 film of it. Sensing this had cemented her 'suspense writer' categorisation, she decided it best to pursue publication of The Price of Salt under a nom de plume, as she may never again write a lesbian romance and so wished to avoid being re-labelled such. 

(She includes no mention of lacking the courage to own a lesbian love story in such a closeted era, which I find less than frank. After all, openly lesbian authors were not unheard of, considering the great author Gertrude Stein et al, but again this was an era arguably even more staunchly right wing than even Stein's heyday, a kind of conservative blowback period). 

Having spent ten months developing this novel from her original Christmas 1948 outline notes, she was perturbed at being obliged to switch publishers when Harpers & Bros rejected it (for obvious generation-related reasons, one surmises, which again Highsmith shies from spelling out). 

She notes that it received respectable initial reviews as a hardcover piece, but that its real success followed a year later as a paperback which sold nearly a million copies. Fan letters, via the paperback house to 'Clare Morgan', poured in twice weekly for months, trickling in for years. The appeal, she notes, was that it had a happy ending for its two main characters, in an era when previous such same-sex attracted characters: 

'... had had to pay for their deviation by cutting their wrists, drowning themselves in a swimming pool, or by switching to heterosexuality (so it was stated), or by collapsing – alone and miserable and shunned – into a depression equal to hell.' 

In this sense this was a groundbreaking novel of its kind. 

Yet not until its 1990 Bloomsbury Books rerelease (as Carol) did Highsmith publicly break her alias and acknowledge authorship. Like so many latter day LGBTQI 'role models', she had waited until post sexual revolution to come out, which in some ways undermines her 'bravery'. 

The rest, as they say is history. In that more gay friendly era, a successful radio dramatisation followed, then eventually the Academy Award nominated 2015 movie, starring Cate Blanchett, who had also co-starred in the 1999 screen adaptation of Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955).  

Carol is evocative high-grade literature resembling the modernist British and European classics. I have enjoyed no other American wordsmith so much, even though she falls marginally short of making my all-time favourites list.

Sheer class. Highly recommended reading!

My review of Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King, by Antonia Fraser

Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King

by Antonia Fraser 

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

While Antonia Fraser is perhaps my all-time favourite biographer, certain of her subjects have not interested me greatly. This, in my opinion, is one of her best for its sheer literary quality.

I could happily soak up Lady Fraser's eloquence on any old thing. So, this not being my favourite or most familiar royal court or period, I relished the opportunity to read her elaboration on it, to gain insight into an epoch I have previously found drier and more awkward to penetrate than others.

I pride myself as an aficionado on other times and reigns while humbly conceding my novice status on this. Hence my need to be gently nurtured into it by fine, readable writing.

Fraser's considerate genealogical charts were also of immeasurable assistance as I flipped back and forth between text and reference to keep up with the many similar yet unfamiliar names. 

This work stylistically transcends many of her others; she has matured so beautifully as a writer. Not since her 1969 Mary, Queen of Scots have I been so enraptured by her words, sentences and human insight - only this way have I learnt much history. It is ultimately, for this reader, the way the topic at hand is presented rather than the topic itself.

I spent weeks on this this. Can only compare it with immersing myself in the most splendidly sumptuous candlelit aromatic bath I've ever had. I re-emerged suitably enlightened, pampered and eternally grateful.

Not the most groundbreaking educational journey of my life, but remedial therapy of the highest order and an invaluable preliminary glimpse into what I still find a less fascinating world than medieval and Tudor England.

My review of Tigers are Better-Looking: With a selection from The Left Bank, by Jean Rhys

Tigers are Better-Looking: With a selection from The Left Bank

by Jean Rhys

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

No Jean Rhys fan would want to let this priceless opportunity pass.

Included is her fateful, first ever published collection 'Stories from the Left Bank', a glimpse of the legend in the making, as a young aspiring novice writer - even then she had the intuitive brilliance that made her adored by her select, intimate following. That her lover Ford Maddox Ford originally published these was clearly no pillow favour - he genuinely saw a rare, unique voice that would echo down through the ages after he gave her that start.

In these earliest of her efforts, which brought her by chance into the arms of her future mentor and lover and kicked off her literary career, we see into the Paris of the 1920s, with its cobblestoned roads, quaint streetlights, underground clubs, bars and restaurants and the English and American arts circles inhabiting this time and place alongside the city's gritty, colourful native characters. 

The more modern stories, written in her maturing years, are equally fascinating albeit for different reasons, her voice having gained greater distinction, her take on life the same as ever and her heels dug relentlessly into her own deeply personal literary ground.

Breathtaking work by one of our most underrated English language greats, a writer decades ahead of her time who yanks at your heartstrings and screams into your ear with a polite, understated whisper.

Like every one of her books, I ached to keep reading and mourned pathetically after finishing it. So much so that I returned to it three times and it still sits in my cupboard awaiting its next round someday.

My review of Ball of Fire: The Tumultuous Life and Comic Art of Lucille Ball, by Stefan Kanfer

Ball of Fire: The Tumultuous Life and Comic Art of Lucille Ball

by Stefan Kanfer

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

TV comedy mostly irritates me, with a few notable exceptions, one in particular being Lucille Ball.

She had that distinct something. I only needed look at her to be triggered into fits of belly laughter. It's a rare gift, we tend to think. But as with so many such greats, Ball's comedic craft was actually the result of decades of hard work. There was little spontaneity in what she excelled at, it was the product of gruelling repetition, so many times did she practice every smallest detail for any scene or sketch - frequently driving her fellow cast members to despair. Such is the requisite professional devotion shared by illusionists, mime artists, circus performers, speciality dancers and great singers.

It brightened my week immensely reading about this fascinating, committed artiste who, in my toddlerhood, was portrayed by a tiny carrot-headed marionette dancing across my screen in sequins and high heels, in the opening credits. She was the only screen persona guaranteed to have me rolling around the carpet. Watching blurry old reruns still has the same effect on me, so timeless is the joy she invokes in the human psyche. Her apprenticeship involved learning on the job, on the pre-TV big screen, in supporting roles to legends like the Marx Brothers. 

As an adult I've had passing opportunity to catch up on even her earlier work, which I'd missed out on watching her as I was growing up. It was therefore great to read the backstory of this entertainment history-making trailblazer, dubbed in an earlier Hollywood incarnation "Queen of the Bs".

A thorough, well written biography with great photographs.

My review of Elizabeth's Spymaster: Francis Walsingham and the Secret War That Saved England, by Robert Hutchinson

Elizabeth's Spymaster: Francis Walsingham and the Secret War That Saved England

by Robert Hutchinson

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

The icing on the cake for those hooked on Tudor history. This lurking figure has been portrayed as a sinister presence at Elizabeth's court, but one who saved her oft rocky reign from doom and disaster on many occasions. We learn more here about why Gloriana's reign involved such diplomatic intrigue and tightrope walking.

Walsingham's brilliant if callous ensnarement of Mary Queen of Scots, heading her entrapment and setting her up under escalating political necessity, is engrossingly fleshed out to the last detail in this biography. We also read of his intelligence operations penetrating foreign military preparation of the ultimately unsuccessful Spanish Armada.

Walsingham rose from near obscurity, albeit from a well-connected family of gentry. On leaving university aged twenty he travelled Europe before embarking on a career in law. Returning from self-imposed exile in France on Catholic Queen ('Bloody') Mary I's demise, he was elected to Elizabeth's first parliament in 1559. He became ambassador to France in the 1570s, witnessing the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, an experience permanently reinforcing his anti-Catholic stance.

A high-profile pro-Protestant in a post-reformation England constantly threatened by reinstatement of Catholicism, he became one of an elite diplomatic inner circle.

His 'cabinet' directed the Elizabethan state and oversaw foreign, domestic and religious policy. As Elizabeth's principal secretary he supported exploration, colonisation, English maritime strength and the plantation of Ireland. He successfully worked towards uniting England and Scotland under one crown.

Readers of all things Elizabethan must surely cherish this book. Neither an especially charismatic nor sympathetic character to document, Walsingham is deftly humanised by the erudite Robert Hutchinson whose less florid narrative style than that of some 'popular historians' rewards the reading effort.

The crucial extra dimension for readers of this period.

My review of Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman, by Caryl Flinn

Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman

by Caryl Flinn

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

It was when I heard an old industry anecdote that I became as interested in the woman as 'that' voice I'd played over and over as a mere stagestruck slip of thing lip synching into a hairbrush in my bedroom mirror:

Scene:

Ethel Merman's dressing room.

Time:

Production briefing after first dress rehearsal.

Junior Producer (timidly, as he backs out of her door):

Oh, and what, um, were you thinking of ... doing with your hair, Ms Merman?

Ethel Merman:

Washin' it!

Needless to say, when I noticed this book luring me like a siren on a shelf, I snatched it away without hesitation.

This straight-talking stenographer from Queens, NYC, started out singing in 1920s midtown Manhattan clubs, after working her office day job. Inspired by vaudeville shows she watched as a youngster, at home she had practiced emulating the voices of stars like Fanny Brice and Sophie Tucker. Her own belting mezzo-soprano voice, however, turned out to be undisguisable.

As singers performed without microphones when Ethel started out, she had an advantage later. She famously never took a singing lessons and Broadway lore holds that George Gershwin advised her never to.

She became tagged the 'First Lady of musical comedy' after launching many now standard Broadway musical numbers, including showstoppers crafted for her by greats like Cole Porter and Stephen Sondheim.

Her signature repertoire included: 'I Got Rhythm', 'Everything's Coming Up Roses', 'Some People', 'Rose's Turn', 'I Get a Kick Out of You', 'It's De-Lovely', 'Friendship', 'You're the Top', 'Anything Goes' and her eventual theme song, 'There's No Business Like Show Business'.

Merman was one of a kind, salt of the earth, a grafter and a trooper who never lost touch with her humble origins. Even so, she paradoxically somehow became the ultimate Broadway diva. Like others before and since, she had earned this status, this special place in theatrical history and, once on her throne, she defended her creative prerogative as does a lioness her cubs. 

This is a thorough, well penned biography, not a fast or trashy read. It gives an extensive history of an unlikely diva, including her formative phase, long before she had any inkling of her legendary destiny.

A great book about a fierce and funny woman you'd never want to have in your ear.

My review of Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland, by Gerald Clarke

Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland

by Gerald Clarke

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

As irresistible as its subject, this fine biography had me grinning for weeks, occasionally gasping and, now and then, just a tad teary.

Much has been written about Judy Garland, some of it even true. This, however, is well documented material that we instinctively trust to be uninvented.

Judy's artistic and aesthetic insecurities sometimes robbed her from knowing how widely loved she was. Nor was this not uncommon Hollywood syndrome helped by her not uncommon addiction. She did, however, know deep down, which was how she was able to reach out and have live concert audiences eating from the palm of her hand right up to the end. Some fans turned on her as she unravelled, but more remained steadfast in their loyalty.

The little Francis Gumm and her performing vaudeville sisters had precarious moments in what now, in retrospect, appears an earthy, well rooted professional start. They learned the ropes, on the job, from being knee high.

When Judy went on to Hollywood and attended school with other young aspirants, she was the ugly duckling of the class and never really forgot that. Of course, we see her as beautiful in many of her big screen hits, but she was 'different' in her beauty. (So many demographics related to this.)

Her common touch was priceless, her voice incredible. When Fred Astaire called her 'the greatest entertainer who ever lived' he was not consciously exaggerating. We assume she never got to hear those kind words.

Judy won a Juvenile Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, Grammy Awards and a Special Tony Award. She had Academy Award nominations for Best Actress in the remake of A Star Is Born (1954) and Best Supporting Actress in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). She remains the youngest recipient (at 39) of the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in the motion picture industry. She was posthumously honoured with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997.

We wonder whether she'd have laughed out loud at suggestions that her demise was the final straw that triggered the Stonewall riots, giving rise to the modern gay liberation movement. Or whether she'd have been flattered.

Her legacy includes the precious recordings of her legendary singing and films - not to mention some pretty legendary offspring. And to help cement that legacy is this decently penned biography, to hopefully put lesser, more gossipy works back where they belong.