“I will say, as a woman, when you put a mustache on, you find out a lot of things about yourself.”
This is what happens when Bookers has a night meeting with food and spirits…we turn into fun-loving adults with a sense of child-like wonder – oh wait…we’ve always been that way. And we might inquire discreetly to one of our own who not only wore hers home but took a couple more for whatever reason! Looking around the room of mustached Bookers, you’d swear Charlie Chaplin, Albert Einstein, Hulk Hogan, and Tom Selleck had made cameo appearances.
Leave it to Debbie Yarger to not only host the event, provide visuals of the book along with an in-depth review, but plunge all 15 of us inside the character of the loveable odd duck “Frank,” who is fueled by nostalgia of long-ago eras and is obsessed with everything old Hollywood, not only dressing the part but fluent in the facts attached to the celebrities.
Many thanks to Bonnie Magee, our food & beverage czar, (we missed you) for arranging our hearty fare and to those who provided the yummy treats as we bid adieu to the 18th year of Bookers. As a matter of protocol, I’ve been asked by the new PWC activities director to again chair Bookers…bring on Year 19…I appreciate your support and being a part of our dynamic group of ladies who love the written word!! And, after our summer break (from meeting – not reading), we will adjourn on September 13th with a slate of book selections (to add to the 167 we’ve already read since Bookers began) and hopefully a full house. Have a wonderful summer.
This month’s quirky selection was set both in New York and Los Angeles. In the author’s narrative she describes the “Big Apple” as a place where editors at important publishing houses hire their assistants without regard to literary inclinations or knowledge and where “old immigrant ladies with black babushkas and hairy moles on their stevedore arms take in everything happening on the sidewalks from their windowsills.” On the opposite coast in “La La Land,” the handymen are not desperate undocumented immigrants but Juilliard-trained pianists with Adonis-like profiles…and at the center of the story is young Frank.
Debbie referenced “Frank” as evoking the same emotion as our previous reads, The One-in-a-Million Boy, and Dear Edward as she walked us through the story highlighting the characters and their relationships and influences on each other. The story is narrated by Alice Whitley…an organized and competent native Nebraskan who is charged with being “proxy” Mimi and caretaker, confidant, and friend to Frank… and in the end she is the one who unwinds everyone’s stories for the readers. Mimi or M.M. Banning, the one-hit-wonder recluse author who is forced to churn out another novel to save the life she has built for herself and her son accepts Alice as a necessity and often as an intruder but relies on her to be in full charge of Frank and anything else that needed to be dealt with on a daily basis while she locked herself in her office typing away at the new novel. Isaac Vargas, the New York publisher with a definite sweet spot for Mimi and acting in both a pseudo-protector role and perhaps with father-like-interest is responsible for sending Alice to Mimi to oversee the progress of the novel. Xander Devlin is like your favorite lollipop – you can’t get enough of the sweetness but then you have to wait until he decides to pop back into your life before you get another taste. He’s lovable, adorable, presumptuous, flaky (do you give a child a box of Roman candles for his birthday?) and a stereotypical “God’s gift to all” …yet his role in the novel is somehow endearing and important to all the characters. Then there’s the star of the show, Frank, the only child of Mimi and an anonymous sperm donor, captured our hearts and imagination as he tried to navigate his world inside the real world. In the mornings he might be dressed in a tuxedo and top hat living in his carefully constructed environment functioning as a vortex of chaos spouting data like he edited Wikipedia – one who adored his mother but was starved for her attention and although not labeled was most certainly on the Autism/Asperger’s spectrum. The author explains his creation – they reside in Hollywood, her husband (a snappy dresser with a closet serving as a source of inspiration) and is a comedy writer, the family watched old black and white movies and she envisioned Frank as the “love child of Karl Lagerfeld of Chanel fame and Diana Vreeland, the editor-in-chief of Vogue who learned his way around a cravat from his uncle Fred Astaire. Frank had to be more than his quirks, he just had to be Frank.”
Our discussion:
An author’s job is to find a new way to tell an old story and one way to accomplish that is to pattern characters or author profiles after success. That might not be the case here but let’s look at a couple of the similarities between this book and To Kill A Mockingbird. As we all know Harper Lee wrote a book published in 1960, winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1961 resting on her laurels until her death in 2016. Enter Ms. Johnson’s M.M. Banning, the reclusive author whose only title, Pitched, achieved phenomenal success and a Pulitzer Prize all before the age of 21. Another classic comes to mind, The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger who enjoyed immediate notoriety with millions of copies flying off the shelves also became a recluse, only writing an occasional short story or novella – sales worldwide are estimated at 65 million with two-hundred thousand still selling yearly. Another similarity between Be Frank with Me and To Kill a Mockingbird lies in the characters Frank and Boo Radley, both displaying some form of autism which has different levels on the spectrum, but is generally characterized by deficits in communication, language, behavior, and social skills. Frank and Boo are childlike, highly intelligent, impulsive, impressively hyperaware, eccentric, awkward around others, and have difficulty discerning whether a person is a positive or negative influence. Both authors use a child’s imagination to understand and sympathize with others, challenging readers to find a way to see their world in a new way minus the labels. Ms. Johnson said of Frank, “I liked thinking of Frank as a kid who traveled out of the past through a wormhole in the space/time continuum, from a time before labels existed.”
Another “odd” coincidence Ms. Johnson drafted Be Frank with Me before the news broke of the publication of Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, the first draft of “Mockingbird” in 2015 but it has been pointed out that some of the language parallels the reality of the publication…“a second book from M.M. Banning. Good, bad, or indifferent, it would be a bestseller.”
So, in conclusion, deftly if not purposefully Ms. Johnson drew on a winning formula, perhaps finding a new way to tell an old story.
All but two read “Frank” and it fostered a lively discussion including candid conversations about Autism and Asperger’s and the effects they have on families and educators who often walk a fine line between parents and the well-being of the other students. We talked about a possible genetic link, the theory that the syndrome follows the “x” or “y” chromosomes, and to some might be caused by vaccines or drugs contaminating our drinking water. One of our in-depth observers commented can we really be taking each other seriously while sporting fake mustaches?
The differences between Old Hollywood and New Hollywood were offered as in “back in the day” the studios controlled all the actors from who to date, what to wear, who to marry, what scripts to read, not to mention acceptable body images. Today it’s still glitzy and “celebrity focused” enhanced by the impact of social media and the availability of “breaking news as we come on the air” – who was seen with who behind the scenes, etc…The attitude is hit it big and you get the keys to the mansion and end up with a beautiful spouse even if you stayed home on prom night. Frank dressed the part of Old Hollywood but unfortunately for him lived in the present controlled by his mother. Alice telling Mimi she had not read her book (although she had) might have been a retaliation of sorts for Mimi’s dismissive attitude toward her (much like the hired help) or perhaps a defense for not having to answer any questions about the book from the author while sleeping in her guest room. But in the end, we learn Alice is a character in Mimi’s new book – is it the “wonderland” Alice or organized rule-follower Alice from the Midwest who sometimes felt like a thorn in Mimi’s side – maybe a little jealousy on her part because Frank bonded to the “staff?” We had an interesting conversation about Xander telling Alice that she’s “not curious,” but selfish discussing how people react differently to inquisitive questions – some seen as nosy or intrusive, others embrace curiosity and felt by asking questions you make more informed decisions. We talked a little about Mimi’s brother, Julian, and whether the guilt she felt for refusing to help him and his subsequent suicide formed her snarky attitude or was it a reaction to the guilt she felt about his death. Many felt the ending was rushed – all of a sudden everything seems “normal,” Alice’s job is done, and she’s gone. Knock knock…Sequel?
The author’s daughter says Mimi is the mean version of her and Alice, the sweet version, which she agrees with – from a Pollyanna outlook on life to Mimi’s cranky character who endured a decade of thinking the best day is one without a trip to the emergency room. Julia had a lot to draw from to produce her debut novel…truly an entertaining read meant to be taken lightly. A nice way to start our “vacation.”
On the business side:
The results of the BookTrib audiobook giveaway program resulted in the majority (11) voting for The Miranda Obsession by Jen Silverman. It is based on one of Hollywood’s most glamorous and alluring stories of the 1980s detailing a thrilling tale of intimacy and self-invention between Miranda Grosvenor (in the voice of Rachel Brosnahan of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel fame) who became close friends with Bob Dylan, Richard Gere, Billy Joel, Robert De Niro, Warren Beatty, Quincy Jones, music producer, Richard Perry, and other A-listers without ever meeting. Josh Groban is the voice of Billy Joel, who reportedly wrote songs about her and planned a musical about her, and Perry and Jones proposed marriage. Other notables play the roles of some of the most powerful and famous men of that decade who fell under her spell. The unique code to download the book will be sent to me at the end of May, and I’ll forward that to those who participated.
I reached out to Michael Granberry via email, and he
was very appreciative of our support of Books in Bloom and Hole in the
Roof: The Dallas Cowboys, Clint Murchison, Jr., and the Stadium that Changed
American Sports Forever set for release December 6, 2022, and available
for pre-order with price guarantee and free shipping:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1648430961/ref=cm_sw_r_awdo_V21ESJH1Z6287G8YK3Z8
Many thanks to all who participated in this fundraiser, especially those who sacrificed playing a round of golf or a leisurely afternoon of doing “whatever” to support this worthwhile cause!
COLOR CODING SYSTEM
WHITE: LIGHT READ
PINK: MODERATELY CHALLENGING
RED: CHALLENGING
Summer Read: The Wives of Henry Oades, Johanna Moran
When Henry Oades accepts an accountancy post in New Zealand, his wife, Margaret, and their children follow him to exotic Wellington. But while Henry is an adventurer, Margaret is not. Their new home is rougher and more rustic than they expected—and a single night of tragedy shatters the family when the native Maori stage an uprising, kidnapping Margaret, and her children. The story is based on a real-life legal case.
PINK
Discussion Leader: Jane Shaw
Happy Summer Reading!
JoDee
