2013, ISBN: 9780345430519

Gebundene Ausgabe

Bantam. Good. 5.06 x 1.06 x 7.81 inches. Paperback. 2006. 329 pages. Cover worn.<br>The hilarious and true story of two sen ior-citizens and their whippet dog who hatch, plan and ca… Mehr…

Bantam. Good. 5.06 x 1.06 x 7.81 inches. Paperback. 2006. 329 pages. Cover worn.<br>The hilarious and true story of two sen ior-citizens and their whippet dog who hatch, plan and carry out a lunatic scheme to sail from Stone in Staffordshire to Carcasson ne in the South of France. From the Hardcover edition. Editoria l Reviews Review Written with the author's glorious sense of hum or, this is one of those journeys you never want to end.-Good Boo k Guide, UK A rich and winning comic debut, destined to become a classic.-Daily Telegraph, UK One of the most hilarious travel m emoirs ever written!-Booklist About the Author Terry Darlington was brought up in Pembroke Dock, Wales, during the war, between a flying-boat base and an oil terminal. He survived and moved to S taffordshire, where he founded Research Associates, an internatio nal market research firm, and Stone Master Marathoners, a running club. Like many Welshmen, he is talkative and confiding, ill at ease with practical matters, and liable to linger in pubs. He lik es boating but knows nothing about it. Following the publication of Narrow Dog to Carcassonne, Terry, his wife Monica, and their whippet Jim planned to sail the Phyllis May down the Intracoastal Waterway from Virginia to Florida-an adventure which, should the y survive it, will be the subject of their next book, Narrow Dog to Indian River, coming from Delta in 2009. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter One Moon River Ston e to Westminster On the floor of the Star Inn Jim was fighting t o push his entire body inside a bag of pork scratchings. I could have had a dog that ate its dinner, a dog that barked and wagged its tail, a normal dog, a dog with fur. But the book said a whipp et was the easiest dog and I had trouble enough already. Whippet s are hounds-miners' dogs, racers, rabbiters. They are very thin. On top they are velvet and underneath they are bald. They are wa rm and smell of buttered toast. They love every living creature t o a rapture unless you are small and furry and trying to get the hell out of here. They like running the towpaths and thieving off fishermen; but fire up the engine, cast off the ropes, and it's the eyes, the betrayed eyes. So the narrowboat Phyllis May has a dog that hates boating. We'll call him Gonzales, I had said, bec ause he's fast, or Leroy because he's golden brown, or we'll have a dog called Bony Moronie. Good thinking, said Monica, and named him Jim. He's your dog, she said-you look after him. I read Your Dog Is Watching You, and Your Dog Will Get You in the End, and H ow to Stop Your Dog Behaving Like a Bloody Animal. Jim and I went to school on many dark evenings, but neither of us learned very much. The door from the canal opened and it was Clive. Like most inland boaters, Clive looks like a pregnant bear. Got you, he sh outed-greedy greedy, early drinkies, surprise surprise, make mine a pint. He sat down and slapped his pipe and his Breton sailor's hat on the table. Jim was ecstatic. Jim sees Clive and Beryl as part of our pack, who sometimes make their escape owing to my lac k of leadership and poor attention to detail. But through his tra cking skills we get them back, and How about some scratchings? A re you nervous? asked Clive, pulling Jim out of his trouser pocke t. Yes, I said. I'm worried about getting away from Stone. I migh t crash or fall in. People will be watching. Clive has a Dudley accent, and a deep voice, as if he is saying something important. Beryl and I should never have encouraged you, he said. You are o ld, you've only got one eye, you are a coward and you can't jump. You're no good at anything useful. Monica ran your business whil e you wandered around being nasty to your customers. By the end of the summer I'll be fine, I said. I can handle the fear-running a market research agency scared me stiff too. We had another pin t, to handle the fear. TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS AGO A bunch o f engineers met in a public house by a canal. They decided the si ze of the locks on the English canal system and then they had ano ther round and started talking about girls. In the morning the se cretary could not remember what had been decided, or indeed where he was, so to be on the safe side he chose the narrowest gauge m entioned in his notes, which was seven feet. That is how the Engl ish narrow lock was born, and the English narrowboat-the cigarett e, the pencil, the eel, the strangest craft ever to slither down a waterway. The five windows of the Phyllis May lit the towpath for the length of a cricket pitch. With her flat roof, fairground lettering, brasses and flowers, a traditional narrowboat has a l ouche charm, though sixty feet by seven is a preposterous shape. Clive and I stepped into the front deck and down to the narrow sa loon. Panelling, armchairs, lamps and pictures-second class on th e Orient Express. You live in comfort, and you live sideways. Mo nica was curled on the sofa. Beryl folded her hands in her lap, i n a cornflower stare. Clive stood in the middle of the saloon. We have news, he said-we are forsaking earthly things. We are selli ng our house and our possessions, giving what is left to the poor , and having a narrowboat built, on which we will live out our da ys. Ah the poor earthbound rabble, tramping their warren streets- for me the silver highway, the gypsy life: my companion the heron , lone sentinel of the waterways, my constituency the ducks, my g ardens the broad valleys, my drawing room the public bar of the i nn called Navigation. I've been trying to persuade the bugger for years, said Beryl. But first we are going up the Bristol Channe l with you on the Phyllis May, said Clive. But I am not going up the Bristol Channel on the Phyllis May, I protested. The Phyllis May is a canal boat. There are fifty-foot tides and the Severn Bo re. We will finish up dashed through the window of Woolworths in Bewdley. I don't think there is a Woolworths in Bewdley, said Cli ve, but if there is I can pick up a CD of Felix Mendelssohn and h is Hawaiian Serenaders. And next year when you go to France we wi ll all put out to sea together, and sail across the Channel side by side. I could feel my palpitations coming on. Clive, I said, narrowboats don't sail across the Channel. I was brought up by th e sea. I remember the empty seats in school when boys drowned the mselves. I might sail the Phyllis May to France if there were thi rty Tommies to take back and it would tip the balance in the stru ggle for Europe. Otherwise it's the lorry, and a crane into Calai s. Let's have a drop more of that Banks's, said Clive-you know I have blue water experience. You mean we went out once from Padst ow, said Beryl, in a cruiser, and nearly drowned. That was a tric k of the tide, said Clive. But they warned you, said Beryl, they begged you, they called it the Maelstrom and you went straight in to it. But we got back in, said Clive. Yes, said Beryl, we got ba ck in. Is this Old Speckled Hen a strong one? asked Clive-it tas tes so smooth. The thing is you rope them up together side by sid e, so if one breaks a belt on the engine the other tows it out of the way of the tankers and car ferries. Piece of piss really. Cl ive, I said, you come from Dudley, you have been to sea once and you nearly didn't come back, and now you want to put at hazard th e December years I could spend in the Star or watching Kylie Mino gue on the box. But narrowboats are like those toys, said Clive. The bottom is full of bricks so they roll back. What about that chap, I said, who built a narrowboat in Liverpool and set out acr oss the Irish Sea? How did he do? asked Clive. No one ever found out, I said. Must have run into a maelstrom, said Clive. Is that single malt as good as you say it is? He sat back and smiled. Jim looked at him with eyes full of love. He had found a leader at l ast. When I woke up the next morning, and I wished I had not wok en up the next morning, I realized that I had agreed to sail an i nland boat across the English Channel, roped up to a madman. A C ANAL LOCK IS A SIMPLE IDEA. YOU CLOSE the gate behind you and emp ty the water out at the other end and you sink down, and then you open the gates in front of you and sail away. Going up you fill the lock instead of emptying it. In real life locks are dark and slimy and foaming. They flood you and hang you by the stern. Ofte n they don't work. But today I wound up the paddles in the lock g ate with my new aluminium key without spraining my wrist, and whe n the lock was empty heaved on the beams and opened the gates wit hout shouting for help. The Phyllis May mumbled out of the Star l ock into the sunshine, Jim riding shotgun on the roof. Friends a nd family waved. Pints were brandished in the sunshine and grandd aughters wept. The swans that nest below the Star dipped their be aks and raised them in perfect time. Past the tower of St. Michae l's, to drinking, and dancing, and waving, and tears, and coarse encouraging shouts. A Cunarder leaving New York, country style. Under Aston lock the Trent valley falls away in spires and farms. It's like Ulysses, I said, whom I so closely resemble. Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world . . . It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Your dog has jumped ship, said Monica, and is probably in Rugeley. And th ere is a corpse under the prop, so you'll have to go down the wee d-hatch again. WHEN MONICA AND I BOUGHT THE PHYLLIS May she was worn out, and we had her refurbished. We had not had a boat befor e and sometimes we would go down to the cut and lick her all over . We loved the gangling shape and the long windows, we loved the curve of the bow and the front deck where you could sit, and the teak and oak saloon running on and on into the galley. We loved t he iron stove, the shower that worked, the little bedroom cabin, the warm engine-room. We held the grab-rail along the roof and wa lked the gunwale, trying not to fall in. I would stand on the bac k counter, leaning on the tiller, musing upon our boatyard manage r's sins and on the follies of the yard before him. But one day we found a boatyard we could trust and soon we sailed away, in sh ining grey and white and crimson, with primroses on the roof and a brass tunnel light at the bow, and our names on the engine-room in fairground lettering a foot high, and ran into the first brid ge. The Phyllis May is not right yet-no narrowboat is right yet. Lumps of metal drop into her bilges, or she leaks from the rear. Then I strip naked, grease myself all over, and hang upside down among the ironmongery, grunting and cursing. It is dark, it is w et, I freeze and I burn and I get stuck and we call out the boaty ard anyway. I have gone all sweaty in my hair so let's talk about something else. Jim lets me use his kennel as my office. I put my laptop on it and sit on the coal-box with my feet on Jim. The coal-box has Phyllis May painted on the front side and Kiss Me Ag ain on the backside. Jim lies quietly under my feet, which is mor e than my secretary ever did, and sometimes he licks me behind th e knees, and in forty years in business there was no chance of th at. In pubs he is the cause of much wise country talk about lampi ng for rabbits, and is seen as the next best thing to a lurcher. The trouble is he camps everything up. In Stone I fastened him o utside the supermarket. When I returned he was in the arms of an old man in a cloth cap. Both were crying softly. I crept away. I came back and a crowd had gathered. In the middle lay Jim, preten ding to be dead. Was this your dog? asked a lady. On the boat I opened a bag of pork scratchings. Jim manifested himself at my kn ee. He sat down-Can I have a scratching? Then he lay down-Please can I have a scratching? Then he rolled on his back and waved his legs in the air-Please please can I have a scratching? Then he s at up and looked straight at me-What do you want me to do-sing 'M oon Fucking River'? A cathedral of oaks to Fradley, and we moore d at the end of the nave. CALL ME MOZZA, SAID OUR NEW FRIEND IN THE cowboy boots, settling into my chair. Some people call me Mad Mozza, he added proudly. He was a sturdy young chap, maybe forty , with sandy hair and blue staring eyes. Cheers Mozza, I said, I' m Terry and this is Monica and you've met Jim. We're really grate ful Mozza, said Monica-Terry loves that dog. He stole Captain's bone, said Mozza, and ran away-Captain didn't stand a chance. Jim looked out of his kennel, his eyes wide-He begged me Your Honour , Steal my bone; he went down on his hands and knees. He was on t he road, said Mozza, but he came to me. They come to me because I have The Power. Would you like a cup of tea? asked Monica. Er ye s, said Mozza. I poured him half a tumbler of rum. I know this b oat, said Mozza-Starbuck. Billy Ishmael had her built-lived on he r for ten years. Knows his boats, Billy. Very artistic. Carried h im home twice from the Plum Pudding in Armitage. Goodness, said M onica-but we are really pleased with her shape, Mozza: the low li ne, the big windows, and we've kept the grey. The lettering on th e engine-room is not bad, said Mozza-why Phyllis May? My mother, I said, rest her soul-she still comes back. They come back all ri ght, agreed Mozza. We had another rum, to stop them coming back. We just retired, I said, and we bought a little house and we bou ght the boat and we bought Jim. We keep crashing into things and running out of fuel and falling in and people shout at us and sti ck notes on the door. Maybe we started too late. It's a way of li fe, agreed Mozza. You've got to be born to it. To tell you the tr uth, at your age you would probably be better off in a home-you m ust be a menace to the navigations. You're right Mozza, I said, b ut you can't get the beer. Click click, said Mozza. Pardon? I sa id. Click click, said Mozza, let the water in click by click. Oh yes, I said, that poor chap last summer, two locks behind us. The lock filled too fast, knocked overboard by the tiller, engine in reverse, cut to pieces. Wife, two kids. Click click, said Mozza. What's the hurry? We want to go south to see if we can handle t he big rivers, explained Monica. This year we want to go down to London and past the Houses of Parliament and up the Thames and al ong the Kennet and Avon Canal to Bristol. Next summer we want to go to Paris, and the summer after to Carcassonne. Never heard of it, said Mozza. It's in France, I said, right down the other end. It's sort o, Bantam, 2006, 2.5, Hodder & Stoughton. Good. 237mm / 165mm. Paperback. 2013. 432 pages. Cover worn<br>A suspenseful and thrilling novel about a small British team sent into Iran to smuggle out a feisty, inde pendent young woman named Farideh. If they are caught, they will all be executed by the fundamentalist government - the Brits beca use they are effectively spies and Farideh because her husband is regarded as a traitor and she has a dangerous mind of her own. F arideh's husband is a corporal in the Revolutionary Guard, entrap ped by MI6 and held in a safe house in Austria for interrogation. His lowly position would not normally make him a target, but his job as a driver to a top general means that he knows the locatio n of secret nuclear sites and has overheard many unguarded conver sations. But he won't talk unless they will bring out Farideh. Th e SAS say it's too dangerous, but the director of the operation d oesn't want to lose his prize. He assembles a little team of thre e ex-soldiers and one student drop-out who knows the language and smuggles them into Tehran. The journey out is an epic of drama a nd suspense, culminating in a never-to-be-forgotten run for the b order. Along the way, we meet many characters, both British and I ranian, who display courage, cowardice, hatred, and love. ., Hodder & Stoughton, 2013, 2.5, HarperCollins. Good. 18cm. Paperback. 1999. 330 pages. Cover worn<br>From the bestselling author of The Firs t Wives Club and Bestseller, a witty social satire of love, marri age, and the games men and women play with each other. Sylvie kno ws she has a lot to be thankful for. So what if her husband, Bob, is only interested in what she has to say 'in four words or less '? The kids are off to college, and she is sure her marriage is a bout to bloom again. In fact it has already, but not with her. Wh en Sylvie confronts Bob's mistress, she is amazed: except for a g ap of ten years and fifteen pounds, Marla could be Sylvie's twin. But while Sylvie wants passion and romance, Marla just wants a h usband of her own. And so their scheme is hatched: a nip and tuck and some blonde highlights for Sylvie, some brown hair and a few extra pounds for Marla, and the women are ready to switch places . The result as they juggle their new lives and identities is hil arious and enlightening. But just how long can they keep their ch arade going, and will it all end in tears? ., HarperCollins, 1999, 2.5, Delacorte Press. Good. 5.1 x 1.2 x 7.6 inches. Hardcover. 2006. 336 pages. Ex-library. Cover worn. <br>Some women shop. Some eat. Dora cures the blues by bingeing on books-reading one after anot her, from Flaubert to bodice rippers, for hours and days on end. In this wickedly funny and sexy literary debut, we meet the begui ling, beautiful Dora, whose unique voice combines a wry wit and v ulnerability as she navigates the road between reality and fictio n. Dora, named after Eudora Welty, is an indiscriminate book jun kie whose life has fallen apart-her career, her marriage, and fin ally her self-esteem. All she has left is her love of literature, and the book benders she relied on as a child. Ever since her la rger-than-life father wandered away and her book-loving, alcoholi c mother was left with two young daughters, Dora and her sister, Virginia, have clung to each other, enduring a childhood filled w ith literary pilgrimages instead of summer vacations. Somewhere a long the way Virginia made the leap into the real world. But Dora isn't quite there yet. Now she's coping with a painful separatio n from her husband, scraping the bottom of a dwindling inheritanc e, and attracted to a seductive book-seller who seems to embody a ll that literature has to offer-intelligent ideas, romance, and a n escape from her problems. Joining Dora in her odyssey is an e lderly society hair-brusher, a heartbroken young girl, a hilariou s off-the-wall female teamster, and Dora's mother, now on the wag on, trying to make amends. Along the way Dora faces some powerful choices. Between two irresistible men. Between idleness and work . And most of all between the joy of well-chosen words and the un tidiness of real people and real life. Editorial Reviews From P ublishers Weekly Kaufman, a former L.A. Times staff writer, and M ack, a former attorney and Golden Globe Award- winning film and T V producer, check in with this solid, thoughtful chick lit debut. Dora, at 35, is a twice-divorced former young reporter on the ri se at the L.A. Times. Second ex-husband Palmer is now head of Son y Pictures, and still supporting her. Dora's depressed, and she o nly leaves the house to stalk Palmer and buy more books. At the b ookstore, she meets elegantly scraggly comp lit Ph.D. Fred, and t hey begin an unlikely courtship. Dora is soon surprised by Fred's invitation to meet his mother, Bea, whom Dora likes instantly, a ll the more so when she learns Bea is also raising Harper, the si x-year-old daughter of Fred's troubled sister. The bond between B ea and Dora gives Dora something she never had with her own, alco holic mother, and helps her make decisions that bring her life ba ck into focus. Dora is the kind of deadpan and imperfect heroine with whom readers can easily identify. Kaufman and Mack mishandle the abrupt ending and epilogue, but are most likely setting up a welcome sequel. (June 6) Copyright ® Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Book list Book lust meets chick lit in this tale of a love-challenged bookworm. Dora, named for Eudora Welty, confesses, I collect new books the way my girlfriends buy designer handbags. Estranged fro m her husband and living in a luxurious L.A. high-rise, she deals with melancholy by taking long baths while drinking wine and rea ding paperbacks. Luckily, her habit must be fed, requiring freque nt trips to the local bookstore, where she meets tall, handsome F red--a starving playwright who ekes out a living by providing boo k-group recommendations to Brentwood housewives. Soon they're inv olved in a heated romance, but things begin to sour when Dora mee ts his family. Then Dora's husband pops up, and confusion creeps in. Dora is a charming character, and readers will appreciate som e of her more neurotic tendencies, such as her debilitating fear of driving on freeways. No literary masterpiece, this cowritten d ebut reads instead like a gossipy e-mail from a witty, intelligen t friend. A list of referenced books and authors is included at t he end. Emily Cook Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Review A book with the word Literacy in the titl e? A book with a lot of astute and telling quotes used as a plot device?... Literacy and Longing in L.A. turns out to be the most delightful read of the year.... An absolute romp dotted with the kind of wise sayings you never want to forget.-Liz Smith Kaufman and Mack cultivate a bright, breezy tone.... This is chick ficti on in its purest form, so humor is always plentiful.-The Miami He rald Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack have a lot of nerve! How d are they come up with the brilliant idea to write a novel about a woman who tells her life story through her obsession with books! And how dare they execute it so beautifully?!...The book is shar p, seamless and very, very funny. I wish I had written it.-Sara N elson, author of So Many Books, So Little Time A poignant and w itty tale of life, love and letters in Los Angles...[a] brilliant debut novel.-Karen Quinn, author of The Ivy Chronicles A wonder ful story that completely won me over-insecure bookish Dora will appeal to anyone who has ever found solace or inspiration in read ing. This is chick lit for bookworms, at times breezy, sexy, prof ound...-Denise Hamilton, author of Prisoner of Memory A delightf ully stylish romp through life and love in Southern California in which our heroine offers irrefutable proof that literacy and L.A . are not mutually exclusive. -Judith Ryan Hendricks, author of T he Baker's Apprentice I'm absolutely crazy about Literacy and Lo nging in L.A., which deftly serves up all the best elements of so -called 'chick lit,' lovingly larded with light-hearted, quick-wi tted, absolutely astonishing learning!-Carolyn See, author of Mak ing a Literary Life Funny and charming.... What a pleasing combi nation: books and romance.-Fort Worth Star-Telegram Funny and ch arming.... A bit of chick lit for women who actually love to read .-Arizona Republic About the Author Karen Mack, a former attorne y, is a Golden Globe Award-winning film and television producer. Jennifer Kaufman was a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times and is a two-time winner of the national Penney-Missouri Journalism A ward. Their debut novel, Literacy and Longing in L.A., was a #1 L os Angeles Times bestseller and also won the 2006 Southern Califo rnia Booksellers Association Award for Fiction. Excerpt. ® Repri nted by permission. All rights reserved. Master of the Universe All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality, t he story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all a nd at all times, how to escape. -Arthur Christopher Benson (1862- 1925)- Women do different things when they're depressed. Some sm oke, others drink, some call their therapists, some eat. My mothe r used to go ballistic when she and my father had a fight, then s he'd booze for days on end and vanish into her bedroom. My sister was more into the global chill mode; give 'em the silent treatme nt and, in the meantime, gorge on frozen Sara Lee banana cake. An d I do what I have always done-go off on a book bender that can l ast for days. I fall into this state for different reasons. Some times it's after an I hate your fucking guts fight. Other times i t's symptomatic of my state of mind, ennui up to my ears, my life gone awry, and that feeling of dread whenever I'm asked what I'm doing. How can anyone sort all this out? All things considered, I'd rather read. It's the perfect escape. I have a whole mantra for my book binges. First of all, I open a bottle of good red win e. Then I turn off my cell phone, turn on my answering machine, a nd gather all the books I've been meaning to read or reread and h aven't. Finally, I fill up the tub with thirty-dollar bubble bath , fold a little towel at the end of the tub so it just fits in th e crick of my neck, and turn on my music. I have an old powder-bl ue plastic Deco radio near the tub that I bought at a garage sale in Hollywood a few years ago. The oddest thing: the radio only r eceives one AM radio station, which plays jazz standards from the forties and fifties, and it suits me just fine. Within my bathr oom walls is a self-contained field of dreams and I am in total c ontrol, the master of my own elegantly devised universe. The outs ide world disappears and here, there is only peace and a profound sense of well-being. Most of the people in my life take a dim v iew of this . . . what would you call it? Monomania? Eccentricity ? My sister is perhaps the most diplomatic. We both know that I h ave a tendency to lose my tether to reality when I close myself o ff like this. But then she'll joke that I'm really just another b oring bibliomaniac and what I really need is a little fresh air. She always was a whiz with words. She actually informed me that a book she read by Nicholas Basbanes (appropriately called Among t he Gently Mad) states that the first documented use of the word b ibliomania came in 1750 when the fourth earl of Chesterfield sent a letter to his illegitimate son warning him that this consuming diversion with books should be avoided like the bubonic plague. Ho hum. I peel off my clothes and throw them on the floor. As I' m walking to the tub, I glance at the floor-to-ceiling mirror tha t covers the south wall of my bathroom. Oh god. Wait a minute. Yo u know how you look in the mirror and you look the same and you l ook the same and all of a sudden you look ten years older? It's f itting that at age thirty-five I should notice this. My waist is thicker, my breasts saggier, the beginnings of--shit, is that cel lulite on the backs of my thighs? Why is it that you think this a ge thing won't happen to you? Oh, and look at the backs of my elb ows! They look like old-lady wrinkled elbows with a sharp, bony p rotrusion. I've never been able to figure out my looks. I've bee n told I'm striking. But what does that mean? It's something peop le say when they can't give you the usual compliments, like you'r e beautiful. It could be my height that puts them off. I'm almost five foot ten, which has only recently become fashionable. I als o have enormous feet. Size 10 on a good day. When I was young, I hated my tall, too-thin, sticklike figure, which my mother descr ibed as willowy. She'd argue that my looks were special and would be appreciated when I got older. Just give yourself time, she'd say. You'll see. You'll outshine all those other girls with hourg lass figures. I felt like Frankie in The Member of the Wedding: a big freak . . . legs too long . . . shoulders too narrow . . . b elonging to no club and a member of nothing in the world. It was n't just my appearance. I always felt like an oddball, the except ion in a world where I imagined other families were normal and ha ppy. Virginia and I endured the secrets and shame of an absent fa ther and an alcoholic mother, and the few friends I had, I kept a t a distance, always relieved when they didn't come over. The fac t of the matter was that I was embarrassed that my mother couldn' t cope, and in some ways, she passed that on to me. I shut my ey es as I get into the tub. I have purposely made the water scaldin g hot and when I dip my foot in, my toes turn red and start to st ing. Too hot. I add a little cold, letting the water run through my fingers as I listen to a tinny version of Coltrane blasting ou t Love Supreme. Paul Desmond once said that listening to late-nig ht jazz is like having a very dry martini. I think he's right. I stick my foot back in and then ease my body into the water. Stil l too hot. I twist the spigot with my toes, adding more cold. The re. Perfect. I pick up The Transit of Venus, an obscure novel by Shirley Hazzard, whose newest book, The Great Fire, has become a favorite among book clubs. The premise is fascinating. It's about two beautiful orphaned sisters whose lives are as predestined as the rotation of the planets. I try to concentrate. The prose is dense and complex; I have to keep rereading paragraphs. I start t o daydream and lose my place. This isn't working for me. Basicall y, I'm still depressed. Maybe it's just the time of year. It's C hristmas, I'm alone, and my social prospects are nonexistent. Thi s is the season to be somewhere else, and for the majority of my friends, that means packing up the kids and maybe a few of their best friends and migrating to second homes in Maui, Aspen, Cabo, Sun Valley, and the second tier, Palm Springs and Las Vegas. Bei ng in West L.A. in December is like being banished to an isolated retreat or even a rehab center where parties and other forms of merriment are verboten. Not that I'm complaining. If you come fro m the east, the weather here in December is glorious. Right up un til the El Ni-o rains in late January and February, the world is temperate, mild, and forgiving. Natural disasters like fires, flo ods, landslides, and earthquakes don't happen in West L.A. This year I have no plans to go anywhere and I am occasionally nagged by that insidious feeling of missing out. When I was with Palmer, we used to go to the Four Seasons on Maui every year. We'd get t he corner suite and even bribe a beachboy to reserve our lounges every day to avoid getting up at five a.m. like everyone else. (I n truth, most of our friends just had their nannies do it.) Now I hear Palmer is going to St. Barts. He thinks it's younger, hippe r, and more fun, unlike being with me. I used to sit by the pool in the shade and read all day. The phone rings. It's my sister, Virginia. She sounds worried. I know you're there, Dora. Why have n't you returned my calls? If you don't pick up I'm coming over . . . I pick up. I'm okay, I say. You don't sound okay. Are you doing another one of your book-hermit things? Nobody knows me lik e Virginia. I've been a little upset. A little, like twenty-fou r hours little or a little, like three days little? Like three d ays little. Doesn't sound little to me. Do you want me to come o ver? I look around. My place is a shambles. No. Really. I'm fine . I was just going out. I convince her that I'm simply marvelous and she buys it. She just doesn't get it. She has a husband and a baby. Who can blame her? I pick up the Hazzard book and try ag ain. This is so depressing. I have just finished an early chapter about Ted Tice, Paul Ivory, and Caro, and I can already tell the y are all eventually doomed to lives of unspeakable loss and trag edy. For one thing, Paul is, Delacorte Press, 2006, 2.5, Ballantine Books. Good. 4.25 x 1.25 x 7.25 inches. Paperback. 1998. 416 pages. Cover worn<br>Thoroughly absorbing. --Time MISCHIEVOU SLY GOSSIPY. --The New York Times MOUTHWATERING. --Entertainment Weekly Gus Bailey, journalist to high society, knows the sordid secrets of the very rich. Now he turns his penetrating gaze to a courtroom in Los Angeles, witnessing the trial of the century un fold before his startled eyes. As the infamous case and character s begin to take shape, and a range of celebrities from Frank Sina tra to Heidi Fleiss share their own theories of the crime, Bailey bears witness to the ultimate perversion of principle and the mo st amazing gossip machine in Hollywood--all wrapped in a marvelou sly addictive true-to-life tale of love, rage, and ruin. . . . E ditorial Reviews Review He is one of those writers who seems eff ortlessly to collide with copy. Movie stars confide to his answer ing machine. Wanted men hail the same taxi. Heiresses unload thei r life stories in elevators. Except, of course, Dunne's luck is n ot luck. People love to talk to him because he has a gift for int imacy that is real and generous. -Tina Brown, editor, The New Yor ker Dunne's antennae are always turned to the offbeat story... H e is magazine journalism's ace social anthropologist whose area o f study is the famous and infamous up close and personal. -San Fr ancisco Chronicle A sharp and unfooled observer of decor and mor es. -Los Angeles Times Dunne is a genius. -Newsday He knows ev ery story there is to tell, precisely how it happened, and why. - The New York Times Book Review From the Hardcover edition. From the Inside Flap Thoroughly absorbing. --Time MISCHIEVOUSLY GOSS IPY. --The New York Times MOUTHWATERING. --Entertainment Weekly Gus Bailey, journalist to high society, knows the sordid secrets of the very rich. Now he turns his penetrating gaze to a courtro om in Los Angeles, witnessing the trial of the century unfold bef ore his startled eyes. As the infamous case and characters begin to take shape, and a range of celebrities from Frank Sinatra to H eidi Fleiss share their own theories of the crime, Bailey bears w itness to the ultimate perversion of principle and the most amazi ng gossip machine in Hollywood--all wrapped in a marvelously addi ctive true-to-life tale of love, rage, and ruin. . . . From the Back Cover ALLURING . . . YOU CAN'T PUT IT DOWN. --San Francisco Chronicle DELICIOUSLY WICKED. --Vogue POWERFUL, EVOCATIVE, AND RELENTLESSLY ENTERTAINING. --Newsday About the Author Dominick D unne is an internationally acclaimed journalist and the bestselli ng author of both fiction and nonfiction, including A Season in P urgatory, An Inconvenient Woman, The Two Mrs. Grenvilles, People Like Us, and The Mansions of Limbo. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by perm ission. All rights reserved. Yes, yes, it's true. The conscientio us reporter sets aside his personal views when reporting events a nd tries to emulate the detachment of a camera lens, all opinions held in harness, but the man with whom this narrative deals did not adhere to this dictum, at least when it came to the subject o f murder, a subject with which he had had a personal involvement in the past. Consequently, his reportage was rebuked in certain q uarters of both the journalistic and the legal professions, which was a matter of indifference to him. He never hesitated to speak up and point out, in print or on television, that his reportage on matters of murder was cheered by much larger numbers in other quarters. Walk down Madison Avenue with me and see for yourself h ow often I am stopped by total strangers, he said in reply to a h ate letter he received from an enraged man who wrote that he had vilified O.J. Simpson through the pages of your pretentious magaz ine for two and a half years. His name, as it appeared in print or when he was introduced on television, was Augustus Bailey, but he was known to his friends, and even to those who disliked him intensely, because of the way he had written about them, as Gus, or Gus Bailey. His name appeared frequently in the newspapers. Hi s lectures were sold out. He was asked to deliver eulogies at imp ortant funerals or to introduce speakers at public events in hote l ballrooms. He knew the kind of people who said We'll send our p lane when they invited him for weekends in distant places. From the beginning, you have to understand this about Gus Bailey: He k new what was going to happen before it happened. His premonitions had far less to do with fact than with his inner feelings, on wh ich he had learned to rely greatly in the last half dozen years o f his life. He said over the telephone to his younger son, Zander , the son who was lost in a mountain-climbing mishap during the d ouble murder trial of Orenthal James Simpson, I don't know why, b ut I keep having this feeling that something untoward is going to happen to me. Certainly, there are enough references to his obl iteration in his journal in the months before he was found dead i n the media room of his country house in Prud'homme, Connecticut, where he had been watching the miniseries of one of his novels, A Season in Purgatory. The book was about a rich young man who go t away with murder because of the influence of his prominent and powerful father. Getting away with murder was a relentless theme of Gus Bailey's. He was pitiless in his journalistic and novelist ic pursuit of those who did, as well as of those in the legal pro fession who created the false defenses that often set their clien ts free. That book, the miniseries of which he was watching, had brought Gus Bailey and the unsolved murder in Greenwich, Connecti cut, which, to avoid a libel suit, he had renamed Scarborough Hil l, a great deal of notoriety at the time of its publication, resu lting in the reopening of the murder case by the police. Gus had fervently believed that the case remained unsolved because the po lice had been intimidated by the power and wealth of the killer's family, which extended all the way to the highest office in the land. It was exactly the same thing in the Woodward case, said G us, who had written an earlier novel about a famous society shoot ing in the aristocratic Woodward family on Long Island in the fif ties called The Two Mrs. Grenvilles. The police were simply outda zzled by the grandeur of Elsie, whom I called Alice Grenville, an d Ann Woodward got away with shooting her husband. As always, wh en Gus's passions were involved in his writing, he ruffled feathe rs. Powerful families became upset with him. He created enemies. You seem to have annoyed a great many very important people, sai d Gillian Greenwood of the BBC, as a statement not a question, in the living room of Gus Bailey's New York penthouse, where she wa s interviewing him on camera for a documentary on his life called The Trials of Augustus Bailey. Gus, who was used to being on ca mera, nodded agreement with her statement. True, he replied. Do people ever dislike you, the way you write about them? asked Gill ian, who was producing and directing the documentary. There seem s to be a long line, answered Gus. Does that bother you? she ask ed. It's an occupational hazard, I suppose, said Gus. Does it b other you? Gillian repeated. Sometimes yes. It depends who, real ly. Do I care that a killer or a rapist dislikes me? Or the lawye rs who get them acquitted? Of course not. Some of those people, l ike Leslie Abramson, I am proud to be disliked by. Yes, yes, Les lie Abramson, said Gillian. She told us you weren't in her league when we interviewed her for this documentary. Gus, who was a la psed Catholic, looked heavenward as he replied, Thank you, God, t hat I am not in Leslie Abramson's league. What happens when you meet these people you write about? You must run into some of them , the way you go out so much, and the circles you travel in. It does happen. It's not uncommon. Mostly, it's very civilized. Aver ted eyes, that sort of thing. A fashionable lady in New York, Mrs . de la Renta, turned her back on me at dinner one night and spok e not a word in my direction for the hour and a half we were sitt ing on gold chairs in Chessy Rayner's dining room. I rather enjoy ed that. Sometimes it's not quite so civilized, and there have be en a few minor skirmishes in public. That's what I want to hear about, said Gillian. Gus laughed. I seem to have annoyed a rathe r select number of your countrymen when I wrote in Vanity Fair ma gazine that I believed the British aristocrat Lord Lucan, who mur dered his children's nanny in the mistaken belief that she was hi s wife and then vanished off the face of the earth, was alive and well and being supported in exile by a group of very rich men wh o enjoyed the sport of harboring a killer from the law. Certain o f those men were very annoyed with me. Oh, let me guess, said Gi llian. You annoyed the all-powerful James Goldsmith, and he's ver y litigious. Curiously enough, not Jimmy Goldsmith, who had ever y reason to be annoyed, said Gus. He chose to treat the whole thi ng as a tremendous joke. 'Gus here thinks Lucky Lucan is hiding o ut at my place in Mexico,' he said one night at a party at Wendy Stark's in Hollywood, which we both attended, and everyone roared with laughter at such an absurdity. Who, then? persisted Gillia n. Selim Zilkha, a very rich Iraqi who used to live in London, h ad dinner with Lucky Lucan the night before the murder, which I w rote about. Now he lives in Bel Air. He made a public fuss about me at the opening night of Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, when he chastised one of his guests, the Countess of Dudley, who was v isiting from London, for greeting me with a kiss on each cheek. H e referred to me by a four-letter word beginning with s that I ca n't say on television. What happened? The countess, who was no stranger to controversy herself, told off Zilkha in no uncertain terms, said Gus. She said she'd kiss whomever she wanted to kis s and, furthermore, 'Gus Bailey is an old friend of many years.' Tell me more. Another Lucan instance happened in your country, said Gus. Another of the men I mentioned, John Aspinall, a rich g uy who owned the gambling club above Annabel's where Lord Lucan w as a shill, made a terrible fuss at a Rothschild dance in London. He wanted Evelyn to throw me out. Were you thrown out? Of cour se not. The way I look at it is this: If Lucan is dead, as they a ll claim, why don't they just laugh me off as a quack? Why do I e nrage them so? From the Hardcover edition. ., Ballantine Books, 1998, 2.5<

2017, ISBN: 9780345430519

Gebundene Ausgabe

Ballantine Books. Good. 5.15 x 0.78 x 8 inches. Paperback. 2017. 384 pages. Cover worn.<br>NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ? The bestsel ling author of How Stella Got Her Groove Back and … Mehr…

Ballantine Books. Good. 5.15 x 0.78 x 8 inches. Paperback. 2017. 384 pages. Cover worn.<br>NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ? The bestsel ling author of How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Waiting To Exha le is back with the inspiring story of a woman who shakes things up in her life to find greater meaning NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOO KS OF THE YEAR BY LIBRARY JOURNAL In I Almost Forgot About You, Dr. Georgia Young's wonderful life--great friends, family, and su ccessful career--aren't enough to keep her from feeling stuck and restless. When she decides to make some major changes in her lif e, including quitting her job as an optometrist and moving house, she finds herself on a wild journey that may or may not include a second chance at love. Georgia's bravery reminds us that it's n ever too late to become the person you want to be, and that takin g chances, with your life and your heart, are always worthwhile. Big-hearted, genuine, and universal, I Almost Forgot About You shows what can happen when you face your fears, take a chance, an d open yourself up to life, love, and the possibility of a new di rection.It's everything you've always loved about Terry McMillan. Praise for I Almost Forgot About You McMillan paints relations hips in joyous primary colors; her novel brims with sexy repartee , caustic humor, and a fluent, assured prose that shines a bright light on her memorable characters. Her very best since Waiting t o Exhale.--O: The Oprah Magazine The novel is immensely companio nable, and Georgia is as alive, complex, inquiring, motivated and sexy as any twenty-five-year-old. Maybe more so.--The New York T imes Book Review Self-discovery, second chances and the importa nce of family are thematic hallmarks of McMillan's novels. . . . I Almost Forgot About You checks all the boxes.--Washington Post McMillan is funny and frank about men, women and sex. Her summa ries of Georgia's marriages and major love connections . . . are powerful and poetic.--USA Today Reading a Terry McMillan book f eels like catching up with an old friend. . . . I Almost Forgot A bout You is a book that is important for readers of every age.--E bony Editorial Reviews Review McMillan is a gifted storyteller. .. The cast of characters enriches the narrative, bringing nuance and clarity to scenes and moving the plot along.... Georgia's st ory reminds readers who have clocked a lot of living that it's ne ver too late to reconnect and reflect on the past as they craft t he future they want.--Fort Worth Star Telegram The ripple effect s from Terry McMillan's breakthrough in contemporary African-Amer ican fiction still influence our daily lives... [I Almost Forgot About You is] much in the same vein of McMillan's other novels th at track Black women's journeys through self-discovery.--BLAC Det roit McMillan is a master at her craft. Without a doubt, this bo ok will be a hit with anyone who feels stuck in life and is ready to make a move. McMillan has done it again. Get this book and re ad about Georgia's journey. This is another book that should be o n everyone's reading list.--The Baton Rouge Advocate In I Almost Forgot About You, McMillan gives us a story about the possibilit y of change at any age couched in her customary vivacious prose a nd lush portrayals of character and relationships. Watching 50-so mething Georgia slowly reinvent herself and find lasting love alo ng the way is a joy to behold. Here is a deeply felt, deeply cour ageous novel about the courage to face yourself and your past to discover--and create--the future you want for yourself.--The Root The reader finds herself torn between gritting her teeth at how right McMillan gets the relationships between best friends, ex-s pouses, ex-lovers, parents and children and putting the book down to laugh out loud. Run, don't walk and pick up this exuberant su mmer read.--BookPage Nobody does female reinvention better than McMillan... another winner for McMillan's groaning bookshelf of h its.--AARP magazine McMillan has written an engaging novel with an appealing cast of women... This near-perfect choice for women' s book club discussions will prompt arguments of what makes a guy too good to be true. Stock up with multiple copies. -Library Jou rnal (starred review) Terry McMillan's novels have always been a bout telling the uncensored truth about friends, family, lovers, and oneself. Through addictively revealing conversations - includ ing an instructive one about the sexual prowess of men who made t he A list - McMillan's narrator is the ideal running commentator on what smart women do to reach the pinnacle of success and what they must do to get the hell out before it's too late. It's a sto ry about both reinvention and acceptance, told in McMillan's quin tessential voice, now even more expansive, prismatically percepti ve, and laugh-aloud generous in how we talk about love and all it s wonders.--Amy Tan, New York Times bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club and The Valley of Amazement One of my favorite autho rs since I read Waiting to Exhale in college, Terry McMillan has done it again with this one. Overflowing with her trademark heart and humor, I Almost Forgot About You will inspire you to live a little bigger. I wish Georgia weren't fictional--I would find her and befriend her. --Emily Giffin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of First Comes Love and Something Borrowed The warmth and wisdom we have come to expect from Terry McMillan are on full di splay and you won't be able to walk away from Georgia and her exu berant life. This is that thrilling kind of novel that reminds us how sometimes, fairy tales happen when we least expect them, if only we open ourselves to possibility.--Roxane Gay, New York Time s bestselling author of Bad Feminist and An Untamed State About the Author Terry McMillan is the #1 New York Times bestselling au thor of Waiting to Exhale, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, A Day Late and a Dollar Short, andThe Interruption of Everything and th e editor of Breaking Ice: An Anthology of Contemporary African-Am erican Fiction. Each of Ms. McMillan's seven previous novels was a New York Times bestseller, and four have been made into movies: Waiting to Exhale (Twentieth Century Fox, 1995); How Stella Got Her Groove Back (Twentieth Century Fox, 1998); Disappearing Acts (HBO Pictures, 1999); and A Day Late and a Dollar Short (Lifetime , 2014). She lives in California. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permis sion. All rights reserved. Running Out of Time? It's another exc iting Friday night, and I'm curled up in bed--alone, of course--p ropped up by a sea of pillows, still in my lab coat, the sash so taut it's suffocating the purple silk dress beneath it, but I don 't care. After a grueling day of back-to-back patients, I'm a few minutes away from being comatose, but I'm also hungry, which is why I'm channel-surfing and waiting for my pizza to get here. I s top when I come to my favorite standby: Law & Order: Criminal Int ent, even though I've seen almost all of them--including the reru ns. These days I usually just watch the first five or ten minutes , long enough to see Detective Goren stride onto the crime scene in his long trench coat, tilt his head to the side while he puts on those rubber gloves, rub the new growth on that beautiful squa re chin, and bend down to study the victim. It's at this moment, before he utters a word, when I usually pucker up, blow him a kis s, and then change the channel. I've lusted over Detective Goren and yearned to be held against shoulders like his long before my second marriage bottomed out. Truth be told, over the years I've fallen in love every Wednesday with Gary Dourdan's lips as CSI W arrick Brown, and even though I was no Trekkie, Avery Brooks's de ep baritone and sneaky smile made me say Yes aloud to the TV. I a lso let myself be seduced for hours in dark theaters, hypnotized by Benicio del Toro's dreamy eyes, even though he was a criminal. By Denzel's swagger when he was a slick gangster. Brad Pitt as a sexy young thief. Ken Watanabe as the most sensual samurai I wan ted to ride on a horse with, and I wanted to be a black geisha an d torture him until I finally let him have all of me. I hate to admit it, but if I had the energy, I'd kill to have sex with the first one who walked into my bedroom tonight. I'd let him do anyt hing he wanted to do to me. It's been centuries since I've had se x with a real man, and I'm not even sure I'd remember what to do first should I ever get so lucky again. In fact, I think I'd be t oo uncomfortable, not to mention scared of getting all touchy-fee ly, and don't even get me started on him seeing me naked. Hell, t his is why I sleep with the remote. When I hear the doorbell, I glance over at the broken blue clouds inside the clock on the nig ht table. I've been waiting forty minutes for this pizza, which m eans they're going to owe me a free one! I roll off the bed on my side, even though the other side has been empty for years. I wal k over to the door and yell, Be right there! Then I grab my walle t out of my purse and beeline it to the front door, because I'm s tarving. That is so not true. I'm just a little hungry. I'm tryin g to stop lying to myself about little things. I'm still working on the big ones. I open the door, and standing there sweating is a young black kid who can't be more than eighteen. His head look s like a small globe of shiny black twists that I know are baby d readlocks. His cheeks are full of brand-new zits. His name tag sa ys free. I'm so sorry for the delay, ma'am. There was a accident at the bottom of the hill, and I couldn't get up here, so this o ne's on the house. He looks so sad, and I'm wondering if the pri ce of this pizza is going to be deducted from his little paycheck , but I dare not ask. I don't mind paying for it, I say. It wasn 't your fault there was an accident. I take the pizza from him an d set it on the metal stairwell. That's real thoughtful of you, but I'm just glad this is my last delivery for the night, he says , leaning to one side as if he's pretending not to look behind me , but of course he is. This a real nice crib you got here. I ain' t never seen no yellow floors before. It's downright wicked. Tha nks, I say, and hand him a twenty. He looks as if he's in shock. Like I said, ma'am, this pizza is on the house, and I also got s ome drink coupons you can have, too, he says, pulling them out of the pocket of his red shirt. It's a tip, I say. Is your real na me Free? Yes, ma'am. How do you feel about it? I dig it. I get asked all the time about it. So how old are you, Free? I'm eig hteen. He's still staring at the twenty but then quickly shoves i t inside the back pocket of his jeans in case I come to my senses and change my mind. Are you in college? I'm hoping he says yes and that he's taking English so one day soon he'll stop saying ai n't. Almost. That's why I'm working. You really giving me this w hole twenty? I nod. Do you know what you want to major in? Mech anical engineering, he says with certainty. That's great. Your husband rich? What makes you think I'd have to have a husband to be rich? Everybody that live up in these hills is. Even them tw o dykes that live next door. And they married. Those dykes aren' t just my neighbors, they're also my friends, and they're lesbian s. A'right. My bad, he says, flinging his arms up like Don't sho ot. I didn't mean no harm. I know. Anyway, I'm divorced. And I'm not rich. But I also don't struggle. You cleaned him out, then, huh? No. Then he gives me the once-over. You some kind of doct or? I look down at my lab coat. Yes. I'm an optometrist. Which one is that? I help people see clearly, I say, so as not to comp licate it. Who helps you? he asks with a smile, which throws me off completely. What a loaded question to ask a woman old enough to be his grandmother. Just fooling with you, Dr. Young. No disre spect intended. None taken, Free. Who helps me see? See what? Cool. Well, look, I gotta dash and get this car back to my cousin , but major thanks for the mega-tip, and I have to say it's nice somebody black gave it to me. Most of the white folks up here ain 't big on tipping, except for them lesbians. What he just said w as a little on the racist and sexist side, but I know he meant we ll. He runs down the sidewalk and jumps into that raggedy car of his, removes the pizza sign displayed on top, and disappears down the hill. I lean against the doorframe watching him go. I really should've praised him for working to pay for college, and if he hadn't been in such a hurry, I would have loved to tell him that he might find his calling in college and he might not. But I'd al so tell him to search until he did. Otherwise he could end up doi ng something he just happened to be good at, something respectabl e that might guarantee him a nice income, but one day, when he's older, like, say, fifty-three soon to be fifty-four, when his kid s have grown up and he's twice divorced and bored with his profes sion and his life and the thought of trying to change it all--or even where he lives--scares the hell out of him because it feels like it's too late, I'd tell him to please figure out a way to do it anyway, since I'm an excellent example of what can happen whe n you don't. I turn off the porch light, close the door, and I c an't believe all of this is flooding in. I walk across these cool yellow concrete floors and sit on these cool metal stairs and lo ok out at the light jutting up through those soft navy blue waves in the cool black-bottomed pool, and I look up a flight where bo th of my daughters used to sleep, and I look down to where the li brary and the guest room are, and I sit here and eat this entire cheese-and-tomato pizza. I am full of regret. Monday mornings a re the worst, which is why I left a little early. The freeway is still slow going. But I'm used to it. I crack my window, although it can't be more than fifty degrees. The dampness coming from th e bay can't eclipse the clarity of this morning as thousands of u s slowly descend around a curve, and there waiting for us like a giant postcard is the Bay Bridge and right behind it the San Fran cisco skyline. This is a beautiful place to live. But then, as t ypically happens at least once a week, the traffic suddenly comes to a scr, Ballantine Books, 2017, 2.5, Ballantine Books. Good. 4.25 x 1.25 x 7.25 inches. Paperback. 1998. 416 pages. Cover worn<br>Thoroughly absorbing. --Time MISCHIEVOU SLY GOSSIPY. --The New York Times MOUTHWATERING. --Entertainment Weekly Gus Bailey, journalist to high society, knows the sordid secrets of the very rich. Now he turns his penetrating gaze to a courtroom in Los Angeles, witnessing the trial of the century un fold before his startled eyes. As the infamous case and character s begin to take shape, and a range of celebrities from Frank Sina tra to Heidi Fleiss share their own theories of the crime, Bailey bears witness to the ultimate perversion of principle and the mo st amazing gossip machine in Hollywood--all wrapped in a marvelou sly addictive true-to-life tale of love, rage, and ruin. . . . E ditorial Reviews Review He is one of those writers who seems eff ortlessly to collide with copy. Movie stars confide to his answer ing machine. Wanted men hail the same taxi. Heiresses unload thei r life stories in elevators. Except, of course, Dunne's luck is n ot luck. People love to talk to him because he has a gift for int imacy that is real and generous. -Tina Brown, editor, The New Yor ker Dunne's antennae are always turned to the offbeat story... H e is magazine journalism's ace social anthropologist whose area o f study is the famous and infamous up close and personal. -San Fr ancisco Chronicle A sharp and unfooled observer of decor and mor es. -Los Angeles Times Dunne is a genius. -Newsday He knows ev ery story there is to tell, precisely how it happened, and why. - The New York Times Book Review From the Hardcover edition. From the Inside Flap Thoroughly absorbing. --Time MISCHIEVOUSLY GOSS IPY. --The New York Times MOUTHWATERING. --Entertainment Weekly Gus Bailey, journalist to high society, knows the sordid secrets of the very rich. Now he turns his penetrating gaze to a courtro om in Los Angeles, witnessing the trial of the century unfold bef ore his startled eyes. As the infamous case and characters begin to take shape, and a range of celebrities from Frank Sinatra to H eidi Fleiss share their own theories of the crime, Bailey bears w itness to the ultimate perversion of principle and the most amazi ng gossip machine in Hollywood--all wrapped in a marvelously addi ctive true-to-life tale of love, rage, and ruin. . . . From the Back Cover ALLURING . . . YOU CAN'T PUT IT DOWN. --San Francisco Chronicle DELICIOUSLY WICKED. --Vogue POWERFUL, EVOCATIVE, AND RELENTLESSLY ENTERTAINING. --Newsday About the Author Dominick D unne is an internationally acclaimed journalist and the bestselli ng author of both fiction and nonfiction, including A Season in P urgatory, An Inconvenient Woman, The Two Mrs. Grenvilles, People Like Us, and The Mansions of Limbo. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by perm ission. All rights reserved. Yes, yes, it's true. The conscientio us reporter sets aside his personal views when reporting events a nd tries to emulate the detachment of a camera lens, all opinions held in harness, but the man with whom this narrative deals did not adhere to this dictum, at least when it came to the subject o f murder, a subject with which he had had a personal involvement in the past. Consequently, his reportage was rebuked in certain q uarters of both the journalistic and the legal professions, which was a matter of indifference to him. He never hesitated to speak up and point out, in print or on television, that his reportage on matters of murder was cheered by much larger numbers in other quarters. Walk down Madison Avenue with me and see for yourself h ow often I am stopped by total strangers, he said in reply to a h ate letter he received from an enraged man who wrote that he had vilified O.J. Simpson through the pages of your pretentious magaz ine for two and a half years. His name, as it appeared in print or when he was introduced on television, was Augustus Bailey, but he was known to his friends, and even to those who disliked him intensely, because of the way he had written about them, as Gus, or Gus Bailey. His name appeared frequently in the newspapers. Hi s lectures were sold out. He was asked to deliver eulogies at imp ortant funerals or to introduce speakers at public events in hote l ballrooms. He knew the kind of people who said We'll send our p lane when they invited him for weekends in distant places. From the beginning, you have to understand this about Gus Bailey: He k new what was going to happen before it happened. His premonitions had far less to do with fact than with his inner feelings, on wh ich he had learned to rely greatly in the last half dozen years o f his life. He said over the telephone to his younger son, Zander , the son who was lost in a mountain-climbing mishap during the d ouble murder trial of Orenthal James Simpson, I don't know why, b ut I keep having this feeling that something untoward is going to happen to me. Certainly, there are enough references to his obl iteration in his journal in the months before he was found dead i n the media room of his country house in Prud'homme, Connecticut, where he had been watching the miniseries of one of his novels, A Season in Purgatory. The book was about a rich young man who go t away with murder because of the influence of his prominent and powerful father. Getting away with murder was a relentless theme of Gus Bailey's. He was pitiless in his journalistic and novelist ic pursuit of those who did, as well as of those in the legal pro fession who created the false defenses that often set their clien ts free. That book, the miniseries of which he was watching, had brought Gus Bailey and the unsolved murder in Greenwich, Connecti cut, which, to avoid a libel suit, he had renamed Scarborough Hil l, a great deal of notoriety at the time of its publication, resu lting in the reopening of the murder case by the police. Gus had fervently believed that the case remained unsolved because the po lice had been intimidated by the power and wealth of the killer's family, which extended all the way to the highest office in the land. It was exactly the same thing in the Woodward case, said G us, who had written an earlier novel about a famous society shoot ing in the aristocratic Woodward family on Long Island in the fif ties called The Two Mrs. Grenvilles. The police were simply outda zzled by the grandeur of Elsie, whom I called Alice Grenville, an d Ann Woodward got away with shooting her husband. As always, wh en Gus's passions were involved in his writing, he ruffled feathe rs. Powerful families became upset with him. He created enemies. You seem to have annoyed a great many very important people, sai d Gillian Greenwood of the BBC, as a statement not a question, in the living room of Gus Bailey's New York penthouse, where she wa s interviewing him on camera for a documentary on his life called The Trials of Augustus Bailey. Gus, who was used to being on ca mera, nodded agreement with her statement. True, he replied. Do people ever dislike you, the way you write about them? asked Gill ian, who was producing and directing the documentary. There seem s to be a long line, answered Gus. Does that bother you? she ask ed. It's an occupational hazard, I suppose, said Gus. Does it b other you? Gillian repeated. Sometimes yes. It depends who, real ly. Do I care that a killer or a rapist dislikes me? Or the lawye rs who get them acquitted? Of course not. Some of those people, l ike Leslie Abramson, I am proud to be disliked by. Yes, yes, Les lie Abramson, said Gillian. She told us you weren't in her league when we interviewed her for this documentary. Gus, who was a la psed Catholic, looked heavenward as he replied, Thank you, God, t hat I am not in Leslie Abramson's league. What happens when you meet these people you write about? You must run into some of them , the way you go out so much, and the circles you travel in. It does happen. It's not uncommon. Mostly, it's very civilized. Aver ted eyes, that sort of thing. A fashionable lady in New York, Mrs . de la Renta, turned her back on me at dinner one night and spok e not a word in my direction for the hour and a half we were sitt ing on gold chairs in Chessy Rayner's dining room. I rather enjoy ed that. Sometimes it's not quite so civilized, and there have be en a few minor skirmishes in public. That's what I want to hear about, said Gillian. Gus laughed. I seem to have annoyed a rathe r select number of your countrymen when I wrote in Vanity Fair ma gazine that I believed the British aristocrat Lord Lucan, who mur dered his children's nanny in the mistaken belief that she was hi s wife and then vanished off the face of the earth, was alive and well and being supported in exile by a group of very rich men wh o enjoyed the sport of harboring a killer from the law. Certain o f those men were very annoyed with me. Oh, let me guess, said Gi llian. You annoyed the all-powerful James Goldsmith, and he's ver y litigious. Curiously enough, not Jimmy Goldsmith, who had ever y reason to be annoyed, said Gus. He chose to treat the whole thi ng as a tremendous joke. 'Gus here thinks Lucky Lucan is hiding o ut at my place in Mexico,' he said one night at a party at Wendy Stark's in Hollywood, which we both attended, and everyone roared with laughter at such an absurdity. Who, then? persisted Gillia n. Selim Zilkha, a very rich Iraqi who used to live in London, h ad dinner with Lucky Lucan the night before the murder, which I w rote about. Now he lives in Bel Air. He made a public fuss about me at the opening night of Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, when he chastised one of his guests, the Countess of Dudley, who was v isiting from London, for greeting me with a kiss on each cheek. H e referred to me by a four-letter word beginning with s that I ca n't say on television. What happened? The countess, who was no stranger to controversy herself, told off Zilkha in no uncertain terms, said Gus. She said she'd kiss whomever she wanted to kis s and, furthermore, 'Gus Bailey is an old friend of many years.' Tell me more. Another Lucan instance happened in your country, said Gus. Another of the men I mentioned, John Aspinall, a rich g uy who owned the gambling club above Annabel's where Lord Lucan w as a shill, made a terrible fuss at a Rothschild dance in London. He wanted Evelyn to throw me out. Were you thrown out? Of cour se not. The way I look at it is this: If Lucan is dead, as they a ll claim, why don't they just laugh me off as a quack? Why do I e nrage them so? From the Hardcover edition. ., Ballantine Books, 1998, 2.5<

1999, ISBN: 9780345430519

Ballantine Books, 1999. Mass Market Paperback. Very Good. Mild shelf wear, spine creases & small bend on cover. Lightly aged pages, no marks. Amazon: Dominick Dunne was a ringside … Mehr…

Ballantine Books, 1999. Mass Market Paperback. Very Good. Mild shelf wear, spine creases & small bend on cover. Lightly aged pages, no marks. Amazon: Dominick Dunne was a ringside witness to the O.J. Simpson criminal trial, about which he wrote extensively for Vanity Fair magazine. In Another City, Not My Own, he revisits the case, this time in fictional form. In this novel in the form of a memoir,"""" Dunne's fiction skates perilously close to fact in most instances. O.J., Marcia Clark, Johnnie Cochran, and a whole host of celebrity characters keep their own names while the life story of protagonist Gus Bailey closely follows Dunne's own. Like Dunne, Bailey--who has appeared in previous works by the author--is a journalist, the father of a murdered child and thus a keen chronicler of the American justice system. The O.J. Simpson trial is a natural magnet for such a man. Throughout the novel, Bailey spends his days in the courtroom and his evenings at celebrity-studded soirees; names such as Heidi Fleiss, Elizabeth Taylor, and Kirk Douglas punctuate the narrative as Dunne comments on the case, the sensibilities of both the accused and his accusers, and the roles of race, fame, and guilt in America today. But shocking as the Simpson case was, Dunne's denouement to his fictional memoir is so bizarre that it may well eclipse the verdict entirely."""", Ballantine Books, 1999, 3<

1998, ISBN: 9780345430519

New York: Ballantine Books, 1998-11-27. Mass Market Paperback. Good. 4x1x7. No Stock Photos! We photograph every item. faint spine creases, edge wear; Gus Bailey, journalist to high s… Mehr…

New York: Ballantine Books, 1998-11-27. Mass Market Paperback. Good. 4x1x7. No Stock Photos! We photograph every item. faint spine creases, edge wear; Gus Bailey, journalist to high society, knows the sordid secrets of the very rich. Now he turns his penetrating gaze to a courtroom in Los Angeles, witnessing the trial of the century unfold before his startled eyes. As the infamous case and characters begin to take shape, and a range of celebrities from Frank Sinatra to Heidi Fleiss share their own theories of the crime, Bailey bears witness to the ultimate perversion of principle and the most amazing gossip machine in Hollywood--all wrapped in a marvelous addictive true-to-life tale of love, rage, and ruin., Ballantine Books, 1998-11-27, 2.5<

1998, ISBN: 0345430514

[EAN: 9780345430519], Used, good, [PU: Ballantine Books], No Stock Photos! We photograph every item. faint spine creases, edge wear; Gus Bailey, journalist to high society, knows the sord… Mehr…

[EAN: 9780345430519], Used, good, [PU: Ballantine Books], No Stock Photos! We photograph every item. faint spine creases, edge wear; Gus Bailey, journalist to high society, knows the sordid secrets of the very rich. Now he turns his penetrating gaze to a courtroom in Los Angeles, witnessing the trial of the century unfold before his startled eyes. As the infamous case and characters begin to take shape, and a range of celebrities from Frank Sinatra to Heidi Fleiss share their own theories of the crime, Bailey bears witness to the ultimate perversion of principle and the most amazing gossip machine in Hollywood--all wrapped in a marvelous addictive true-to-life tale of love, rage, and ruin., Books<