If This Was Happiness

If This Was Happiness by Barbara Leaming

Reviewed by Gerti

Rita Hayworth was an actress before my time, but I had seen her in various movies over the years, including films where she acted with top-notch male stars like Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. I also knew a little of her personal life - she had been married to other famous men, like Orson Welles and Prince Aly Khan, but I never knew that she was married more often than that (and to some real rats!) or that she had been sexually abused as a child by her father. All these things and more are the hot topics in Barbara Leaming’s biography of Hayworth, whose real name was Margarita Cansino.

The title gives away the gist of the book, though, as Hayworth’s life was filled with more unhappiness than one person should have to deal with. Starting with the sexual abuse which started when Rita had to be her father’s dance partner in their vaudeville shows, Rita became the breadwinner for her family after she got into movies. Studio head Harry Cohn tried to control her life after that. She tried to get married thinking that would get her away from being a puppet to her family and Columbia Pictures. However, her first husband, Eddie Judson, used her as a cash cow, as did her last husband, Dick Haymes, part-time crooner and crook.

The only real happiness Rita is said to have had is with second husband Orson Welles, but even he is surprised that she could have considered their short union to have been a happy one. He was quite a playboy, as was her third husband, Prince Aly Khan the millionaire son of the Aga Khan. She had children with both Welles and Khan, but never spent much time with the girls. Welles ignored his daughter with her, Rebecca, almost completely. Aly engaged in seemingly endless lawsuits to see his daughter, Yasmin, but by that point Rita was paranoid about his stealing the girl away since he was abroad more often than in the US.

Perhaps that paranoia was part of her incipient Alzheimer’s disease, but perhaps it was attributable to her drinking. The girls eventually become wards of the state because Rita and her man of the moment couldn’t be bothered to keep them around, and she left them with a babysitter of sorts who let them be dirty and unsupervised. A funny way for a Princess to grow up! It’s strange to see Rita looking disheveled and disoriented in the pictures from this period in her life. But Alzheimer’s would gradually claim her mind, and she became unable to make movies, or even to make public appearances. Fortunately for her, daughter Yasmin took care of her in her later years, as she was unable to care for herself.

The biography is anything but happy reading, as poor beautiful but uneducated Rita is always having terrible things happen to her. It makes you think about what it really means to be a “Love Goddess” (her nickname) and a Hollywood star, with everyone you meet trying to use you for your body, money or fame, rather than helping to make your life happy and fulfilling. A truly tragic story.

The Three Weissmanns of Westport

The Three Weissmanns of Westport 

by Cathleen Schine

Reviewed by Gerti

“The Three Weissmanns of Westport” is Cathleen Schine’s take on Jane Austen’s classic novel, “Sense and Sensibility.” If you are unfamiliar with the hundred-year-old original, it was about two sisters, one practical and the other emotional, who have to survive their father’s death and their subsequent poverty. Being single women, they also look for and find romance, although the road to that isn’t smooth either. Likewise, Schine has two female protagonists in this story, Annie (the practical sister) and Miranda (the impulsive one). Both girls move to a cottage in Westport, CT, from New York City not because of their father’s death, but because he has found a mistress and decided to divorce their mother, Betty. She receives a kind offer from her wealthy Cousin Lou to move into an unrented beach property of his after Joseph Weissman freezes the couple’s assets and she can no longer afford their Central Park West apartment.

Seventy-eight-year-old Joe met his young mistress, Felicity, at work, and while he feels he is being generous to his wife, it is obvious to his step-daughters that he is not. Annie knows all about bad men, since she has been divorced before, but she also has two grown sons whom she loves, and a great job at a bookstore in the city. In fact it is Felicity who introduces her to her famous author brother, Frederick Barrow. He does a wonderful reading of his literary work’s there at the bookstore, and Annie and Frederick have a secret tryst. When Frederick’s snobby grown children try to keep Annie away from their father, little do they suspect an even worse fate is in store for him, thanks to a minx of a house sitter named Amber. Fans of “Sense and Sensibility” will recognize that Amber is the reincarnated Lucy Steele, who in the Austen book “steals” an eligible man away from the sensible sister while pretending to be her friend.

Miranda’s life is also falling apart in parallel with that of her mother. She has never been able to settle down and marry (since she likes falling in love so much) but has built a successful career as a literary agent with her own agency. Now however, it seems some memoirs she has published were mere fabrications, and her reputation and her business falter, bankrupting her. She runs away to live with her mother in Westport, only to fall in love with a handsome local actor named Kit Maybank. He saved her during an ill-fated kayak trip during a thunderstorm. Unfortunately, he has a young son named Henry and seems to use Miranda more as a babysitter than a love interest. He leaves as soon as a good part becomes available in LA, and Miranda realizes she loved being a mother to Henry more than she loved Kit. So when the child’s mother Leanne comes on the scene, Miranda naturally falls in love with her, too.

Schine’s story is charming and modern. Austen fans will recognize who each character is meant to be, but I don’t know whether the ending will satisfy them, or me! I did think Schine’s writing was very good. She used very clever phrases and seems, like Austen, to understand human emotion and evil motivations very well.

Gray Mountain

Gray Mountain by John Grisham

Reviewed by Gerti

“Gray Mountain” is the newest offering by famed legal writer John Grisham. It tells the tale of a well-educated New York lawyer named Samantha Kofer who is forced by downsizing at her huge law firm to head to the wilds of Virginia coal country. Her Wall Street law firm promises that if she works for free at a legal aid clinic for a year, her job may be waiting when she returns. So she does the only reasonable thing, and moves to Brady, Virginia.

Samantha whines a lot about missing life in Manhattan, but she manages to make a home for herself at the Mountain Legal Aid Clinic. It was not her first choice, but the other options for pro bono work have been filled by other “lucky” associates of her firm and others downsized by the 2008 recession. The clinic is run by Mattie Wyatt, life-long resident of Appalachia who knows firsthand the troubles of the region and the people who live there. The two become friends and Samantha learns how to be a real lawyer, preparing a lawsuit, going into a courtroom, and getting caught up in the human drama of the region.

One of the first people she meets in Brady is Donovan Gray, Mattie’s nephew and an appealing but unscrupulous local lawyer. His reason for living is fighting big coal companies devastating the landscape by strip mining, including the land his family owns at Gray Mountain. Donovan takes Sam up in his plane to show her what the mountain looks like after Big Coal is done with it, and it ain’t pretty. But just like she has fears of working for her father, who was a mass tort lawyer before getting disbarred, Sam has problems with Donovan’s do-anything-it-takes-to-win mentality. She finds out he has stolen incriminating documents from Krull Mining. When his private plane crashes and he is killed, the FBI swoops in to try to get them back, but the papers are hidden deep under Gray Mountain.

Sam eventually helps Donovan’s sexy brother Jeff get those papers to another law firm that has been working with Donovan to sue the company for delaying black lung cases. Donovan’s death also has another coal company dragging its feet over paying the million dollar settlement he got in a case against them right before he died – but it was only a handshake agreement and since the ladies can’t find anything in writing, the coal company reneges on the deal. Sam eventually agrees to take the case to the Virginia Supreme Court for Mattie, and in the process promises to stay around Brady for another year or two.

“Gray Mountain” really opened my eyes to the problems of the Appalachian region and the games coal companies play to keep deserving miners from government mandated settlement money once they get sick. Big coal companies find it more economical to fight the miners’ health claims than pay them, because the men are rarely rich enough to hire lawyers, and besides, they don’t live long with black lung. “Gray Mountain” has a fascinating cast of characters, an unusual plot and a female protagonist which make this an interesting read.

Still Alice

 

“Still Alice” by Lisa Genova

 Reviewed by Gerti

“Still Alice” by Dr. Lisa Genova is a fabulous book, well worth buying for your own library. It tells the story of Alice Howland, a Harvard psychology professor for whom being the smartest person in the room is very important. She has a husband and grown children, but they are all secondary to her career and status at the University at the outset of the story. Then it all starts to unravel.

As the book begins, Alice has been asked to speak at one of those conventions where professionals within a certain field get together to discuss innovations, slap each other on the back and drink too much. She loves public speaking. The first sign the reader has that something is wrong with Alice is when she forgets a word during her speech, and has to substitute “thingy.” A bit embarrassing, but which of us has not forgotten a word, especially in a stress-filled situation? This relatability makes it all the more terrifying what happens to Alice next.

She’s out on a jog, and forgets where she is just a few shorts blocks from home. Again, few of us have a perfect memory for places seldom seen. I often forget which exit to take off the highway to get to a rarely visited restaurant, or a store that I haven’t shopped at in a while, but I always know how to get home. This lapse bothers Alice enough that she heads to her family doctor, who sends her to a neurologist. And the diagnosis is devastating – Early Onset Alzheimer’s.

Her downward spiral now begins in earnest, although she handles the situation better than her spouse, who uses his scientific background to find the right combo of drugs to stave off her disintegration. By now, the reader sees that Alice’s perceptions are not entirely accurate, and as the book is written from her point of view, it makes us question whether we can trust her narrative voice.

The heart of the book is how people react to Alice. The daughter Alice understood the least, the one who decided to eschew her advice and forgo college for an acting career, is the one who takes care of Alice best. She is also the one who adjusts her plans to accommodate the deepening needs her mother has for a supportive caregiver. The husband, on the other hand, plans to plow on with his successful career, ready to head to NYC even against Alice’s wishes, saying that by the time they leave, she won’t even know where they are living. While it is true, it is also cruel, and shows his callousness in the face of this family tragedy.

Even though Alice’s thoughts and language skills regress, by the end of the book her understanding of nature and the true meaning of life grows, and she comes to know that her career was never as important as the people she loved. Her desire to live in the present is represented by her decision now to wear a butterfly necklace, something previously only worn on special occasions. She recognizes that every moment of life and every emotion that goes with it are precious. This is a story that will make you cry as well as question the meaning of your own life.

Charity Girl

 

“Charity Girl” by Georgette Heyer 

Reviewed by Gerti

I have always respected Georgette Heyer, and read many of her books when I was younger. I also love the Regency period in England, as it was the setting of Jane Austen’s novels, in which I have a particular interest. Even with both of those factors coming into play, I have to say that I hated “Charity Girl,” and I’ll tell you why.

It wasn’t the setting, as I mentioned, because I love Regency England. It wasn’t the plot, which was a fairly typical setup of a girl under the influence of cruel and conniving relatives, who meets up with a hero under pressure by his relatives to marry. Finally, romance blooms where the hero least expects to find it. I liked the storyline, although I must admit I saw the “twist” coming a mile away. I even liked the characters, including protagonist Viscount Desford, called Des by his friends (and Ashley by his mother), who is intelligent, kind to his mother, and even tolerant to his cranky old dad. He’s so nice, he picks up a poor runaway on the side of the road and takes her to London, even though it imperils his reputation, and hers.

The girl in question is the “Charity Girl”, Ms. Charity Steane, who is running away from her cruel aunt’s house to find her grandfather, although he’s a renowned skinflint, and had earlier rejected her because her father married the wrong woman. Charity, who likes to call herself Cherry (internal cringe here), is of course a beautiful young woman with a passive, pleasing personality along the lines of Jane Austen’s Fanny Price. She looks younger than she is, due to the lack of food and age-appropriate clothing she received at her aunt’s house, where the aunt is more concerned about getting her own daughter’s married than about the needs of this little Cinderella.

Desford takes Charity to her grandfather’s house in London out of the goodness of his heart, but finds the house shut-up. No one there knows where the girl’s grandfather has gone, so Des makes it his mission to find out. However, he still needs to provide for the girl, as she can’t keep riding along with him, so he takes her to the home of his old gal pal, Henrietta Silverdale. Although their families had hoped they would marry, the pair have instead become best friends, and Hetta and Des work out a plot where Charity takes care of Hetta’s mother, who is a hypochondriac. This works well, as Charity just wants someone to appreciate her.

Desford has to travel all over England to solve the problem of what should happen to Charity, and of course has to deal with several bad characters along the way. Finally, one of Hetta’s old beaus takes a shine to Charity, and the problem is solved. Except I still haven’t told you what I disliked about this book, and what made it so painful to read.

It was the language! While Heyer is an unchallenged master of Regency slang, I think every page had about 10 instances of archaic language, and it made this book the verbal equivalent of the Tour de France. Every day’s read was a physical test of endurance, to see how many instances of “Turkish treatment,” “mifty, “skitterbrains” and “jackanapes” I could stand before I put the book down again to recover my sanity. It is so bad, I almost started making a list of all the wacky phrases she used, but I was too far in by that point to want to start reading it again. So, dear reader, only pick up this book if you want to feel as though you’ve been dropped into a foreign country where you don’t know the language. It will make you suffer!

The Memory Keeper's Daughter

“The Memory Keeper’s Daughter” by Kim Edwards 

Reviewed by Gerti

Kim Edwards’ novel “The Memory Keeper’s Daughter” is a strange book for me. I have been reading it compulsively, drawn in by the alternating narrators, who include a doctor named David Henry, his wife Norah, and his former nurse Caroline Gill, who has taken the couple’s Down’s syndrome daughter to be raised out of town. That fact is the heart of the story, but the wrinkles occur when you realize that the couple is on an unequal footing, because the Doctor told his wife that their daughter died at birth, and only the nurse knows that the baby girl survived. The couple also have a son, named Paul, who was the baby Phoebe’s twin. He grows into a moody, alienated teenager, abetted by his bitter mother.

Edwards’ writing is lyrical, almost poetic in places, and easy to read for the most part. But the problem for me is that I don’t like Norah, or her sister Bree, with whom the author seems most sympathetic. Norah creates a distance between herself and her husband over the death of their child, and then blames him for putting up a wall. Dr. Henry’s act stemmed from medical best practices back in the 1960s, and also because he saw how his sister’s death affected his mother when he was young. He doesn’t want the wife he loves to have to experience that grief. So he makes a choice.

It is only as the years go by that the enormity of that mistakes are seen. The doctor asked his nurse to take Phoebe to a local facility where children with Down’s Syndrome were cared for, but Caroline visits the facility and finds it wanting. In love with Dr. Henry, and having little else to stay in town for, she takes the infant and starts a new life in Pittsburgh. The doctor’s mistake is compounded by this act, whether selfish or not, because once he has seen the folly of his decision, he can’t bring Phoebe and her mother together, because he doesn’t know where the nurse has taken her.

The family reunites and attempts, decades later, to repair the damage that has been done. But by then, the Doctor himself is dead, and although he tries to repair his error over the years, Caroline has kept the child away from him, fearful that he would take her back. Dr. Henry has been sending money (when she provided a PO Box), and has set up a trust fund for the child, although the author doesn’t dwell on things like that. It seems that she, along with Norah, is eager to condemn Dr. Henry for his choice during a stressful moment, and all the actions on Norah’s side that divide the couple, like her careless affairs and catty behavior, are laid at his feet for making the initial breach of trust in the marriage.

The book gives me an understanding of how my birth parents could have made a choice that caused me so much pain, and yet seemed so reasonable to them. This book more than anything should be a lesson about not judging people, whether they are disabled or not, without walking a mile in their moccasins. It’s only the author’s prejudice toward Dr. Henry that ultimately mars the book for me.

Who the Hell is Pansy O'Hara?

"Who the Hell is Pansy O’Hara? The Fascinating Stories Behind 50 of the World’s Best-Loved Books" by Jenny Bond 

Reviewed by Gerti

This is a simple book that can be put down and picked up again easily, thanks to the clever design by Jenny Bond and Chris Sheedy. While I would have preferred the book arranged by author, rather than “best-loved book”, it is nice to have the 50 divisions so you can read your favorite authors first, for example, before venturing into those you know less about. Which is exactly what I did, reading about Jane Austen (in the chapter titled “Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen, 1813”) and Helen Fielding, first.

Unfortunately, I had just finished a large-scale biography on Austen, so I was pretty well versed in her life and times. Of course, that biography was much more in-depth and accurate than the blurb found in this book. However, that said, I did find that the other 49 chapters were interesting and did give me many facts about authors that I did not know, even though I had been an English major at college, and an English teacher at the college level.

Because of the way my mind works, I find certain things fascinating, like how many of the authors of “the world’s best-loved books” were Scottish, or how many had a variety of occupations before finally finding success in writing. I liked that the format went forward in time, starting with Austen in 1813, and ending with Dan Brown’s “The DaVinci Code” in 2003. I did NOT like that fiction and non-fiction were divided, because then the time clock reset itself, with Samuel Johnson’s “The English Dictionary” in 1755, and Stephen Hawkings “A Brief History of Time” in 1988. I understand why you’d start with fiction, since most readers are fans of that rather than non-fiction. But I have to say that I found the information on the history of encyclopedia’s every bit as engaging as that of any fictional work (and author). I also quibble with the inclusion of Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” into the non-fiction section, because I think that can be arguable (as it seems, can Alex Haley’s “Roots”), but people will argue about anything, especially what constitutes truth!

In the end, despite not liking the book when I started reading, I bought myself a copy so that I could mark up facts on each author that I didn’t know, and could also dog-ear the pages on books I hadn’t read yet. So is “Pansy O’Hara” perfect? No. Just like Margaret Mitchell changed the heroine’s name in her novel “Gone With the Wind”, the authors of this text could have made changes that enhanced my enjoyment of it. But did I learn something from it? Yes, I did. And as a reference book, however flawed, I’m sure I’ll refer to it for years to come.