Monday's Reviews Today: Dunant's 'Hearts' & Classic Funny Men Unwrapped
-- Publishers Weekly, 5/28/2009 9:45:00 AM
In Sarah Dunant's Sacred Hearts, set in 16th-century Italy, a young girl, with a beautiful singing voice, is shopped off to a local convent by her father to block a forbidden romance. Per our review: "A cast of complex characters breathe new life into the classic star-crossed lovers trope while affording readers a look at a facet of Renaissance life beyond the far more common viscounts and courtesans." And in I’m Dying Up Here: Heartbreaks and High Times in Standup Comedy’s Golden Era, William Knoedelseder, who covered young comics like Jay Leno, David Letterman and Richard Lewis as they were rising up throught the comedy ranks in L.A. in the late '70s, we get an addition to some of the "key classics on comedy."
Sacred HeartsSarah Dunant. Random, $25 (416p) ISBN 978-1-4000-6382-6
Dunant (The Birth of Venus) revisits 16th-century Italy, where the convents are filled with the daughters of noblemen who are unable or unwilling to pay a dowry to marry them off. The Santa Caterina convent’s newest novice, Serafina, is miserable, having been shunted off by her father to separate her from a forbidden romance. She also has a singing voice that will be the glory of the convent and—more importantly to some—a substantial bonus for the convent’s coffers. The convent’s apothecary, Suora Zuana, strikes up a friendship with Serafina, enlisting her as an assistant in the convent dispensary and herb garden, but despite Zuana’s attempts to help the girl adjust, Serafina remains focused on escaping. Serafina’s constant struggle and her faith (of a type different from that common to convents) challenge Zuana’s worldview and the political structure of Santa Caterina. A cast of complex characters breathe new life into the classic star-crossed lovers trope while affording readers a look at a facet of Renaissance life beyond the far more common viscounts and courtesans. Dunant’s an accomplished storyteller, and this is a rich and rewarding novel. (Aug.)
I’m Dying Up Here: Heartbreaks and High Times in Standup Comedy’s Golden EraWilliam Knoedelseder. PublicAffairs, $25.95 (304p) ISBN 978-1-58648-317-3
In 1978, Knoedelseder (Stiffed: A True Story of MCA, the Music Business, and the Mafia) was a journalist assigned to cover newcomers transforming the comedy clubs: “For the next two years, I had stage-side seats at the best show in show business.... I met and wrote about Jay Leno, David Letterman and Richard Lewis before the world knew who they were.” Mitzi Shore, recently labeled “the Norma Desmond of Comedy” by the Los Angeles Times, took over L.A.’s Comedy Store in 1973 with a no-pay policy because she saw it as “a training ground, a workshop, a college.” It became a focal point for local comics, including Lewis, his friend Steve Lubetkin, Elayne Boosler, Tom Dreesen, Letterman, Leno and many more. Some were in desperate circumstances, surviving by living in their cars and eating bar condiments. Driving a silver Jaguar to her “massive, cash-generating laugh factory,” Shore was seen as “cunningly manipulative,” and her unfair payment policies led to an organized strike in 1979 by the CFC (Comedians for Compensation). This confrontation of comics vs. club owner (“Not... one... red... fucking... cent”) is the core of the book, with the suicide of Lubetkin taking the tone from comedy to tragedy. Filmmakers will eye this as a potential property similar to Bill Carter’s The Late Shift (1996), about Letterman and Leno. Knoedelseder skillfully layers powerful dramatic details, and readers will shelve the book alongside those other key classics on comedy: Steve Allen’s The Funny Men and Janet Coleman’s The Compass. (Aug. 24)
