Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

1987, undated movie tie-in McGraw-Hill edition
Fannie Flagg
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe: A Novel
Original price $7.99, purchase price $3.50
Slightly worn paperback
B-

Rather than tell the story from one perspective, as in her debut novel Daisy Fay, Flagg jumps around in time and space (although usually Alabama and Georgia), sometimes telling the story in first-person through newspaper clippings, more often as third-person, either inside a particular person's head, or more objectively and omnisciently.  As such, the book is a bit ragged, and it doesn't help that it is full of chronological errors, sometimes a few days, but more often years or even decades!  (A man born in 1917 can't be 80 in the 1970s.)  Since this ruins a joke in one case-- a man gets tricked into a marriage, but the timeline says 1950 when it should be the same year, 1940-- it really irritated me.  If I recall correctly, this was handled much better in Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!, which we'll get to in 1998.

On the plus side, Flagg here does a good job of creating a little world, particularly the café of the title (the book omits the accent mark throughout) and the surrounding little town.  The movie version simplified things, including combining the characters of Idgie and Ninnie, and those of Eva and Ruth, which makes absolutely no sense.  Also, Sipsey's family is just shown as servants, without the other dimensions they get in the book.  I also really like how Idgie and Ruth's romantic relationship is normalized --they're kinfolk and neighbors, not scary perverts-- and Eva's sexuality (bi but mostly warm and open) is treated sympathetically throughout.  The book isn't as funny as Daisy Fay, but there are lots of smiley moments.

Postcards from the Edge

1987, 1990 Pocket Books movie tie-in edition
Carrie Fisher
Postcards from the Edge
Possibly bought newish for $4.95
Worn paperback
C

This semi-autobiographical novel is sometimes compared to Ephron's Heartburn, although I think the main similarity is that they both got turned into Meryl Streep movies that I still haven't seen.  Well, OK, and they're both full of upper-middle-class people whining.  Like Heartburn, it's sometimes sort of funny, probably funnier actually, but with descriptions of drug abuse and withdrawal, rather than thoughts on food.  And Suzanne's life in Hollywood is very shallow, so even if Fisher is parodying that, it was hard to take with no voices of sanity for contrast.  (Her "sensible" grandmother advises her to marry a boring guy, any boring guy, and learn to love/hate him.  It's like Sheila Levine lived and almost-died in vain.)

I might've liked the book better if Fisher had stuck to one perspective, rather than switching the narrative for awhile to a couple of guys who are interested in Suzanne.  Even when she's focusing on Suzanne, she can't decide between first and third person.  Maybe the book is meant to represent the fragmentation of addiction and/or Hollywood, but that doesn't make it entertaining, or enlightening.  I nonetheless went on to read Delusions of Grandma, which we'll get to in 1994.

Oscar Wilde

1987, 1988 Knopf edition
Richard Ellman
Oscar Wilde
Original price $24.95, purchase price unknown
Hardcover in average condition
B-

This book most reminded me of Sinclair Lewis: An American Life, in that the biographer spent many years (about twenty in this case) researching a controversial writer, wrote a long book that at times includes day-by-day itineraries, but never quite succeeded in making me like the subject as well as the writer's own works.  To his credit, Ellman seems to have liked Wilde much more than Schorer liked Lewis, but then Wilde seems to have been a nicer, more charming person, despite the heartbreak he caused his wife and children.  On the other hand, Schorer's book was much funnier, which hardly seems fair considering the relative wit of Lewis and Wilde.  I do appreciate that Ellman recognises that Wilde's main "crime" wasn't that he was gay but that he didn't hide it (much) compared to most of his contemporaries.

Merlin Holland (now 67), Wilde's only grandchild, and Merlin's son Lucian (now 34) are proud to be Oscar's descendants, although I found out more about them from Wikipedia than in the brief mention Ellman makes of them towards the end.

"And So It Goes": Adventures in Television

1987, Berkley [sic] edition with new material (originally published in '86)
Linda Ellerbee
"And So It Goes": Adventures in Television
Possibly bought newish for $4.50
Very worn paperback
B

I used to love this book and I still have a soft spot for it, but Ellerbee doesn't seem quite as witty and insightful as she did back when I used to read this book a lot and watch her on Our World regularly.  (It was short-lived, like so many of her TV stints to that point.)  I haven't really kept up with her life, other than she survived cancer and turned to producing acclaimed news programs for children.  I still found the book better than Donaldson's.  (And so did he, judging from the quote, "I wish I had written this book.")  Not only does she talk more about her non-TV-life, but she tells better stories.  I've giving her the "television criticism" tag that I didn't give him, not only because she's more critical, but because she talks more about specific shows.  And, yes, I found her use of "so it goes," much less annoying than Vonnegut's, because she uses it sparingly and more meaningfully.

The update here is in some ways the best chapter, since it tells of the ups and downs that followed the first publication of the book, so if you get this, go for the paperback.

Call Me Anna: The Autobiography of Patty Duke

1987, 1988 Bantam edition
Patty Duke and Kenneth Turan
Call Me Anna: The Autobiography of Patty Duke
Original price $4.95, purchase price $3.95
Very worn paperback
B-

Duke tells of her more-troubled-than-Carol-Burnett childhood, not just poverty and an alcoholic father, but controlling, abusive managers.  She also reveals that she's manic-depressive (now more commonly called bipolar).  She of course discusses her career, what she's proud of (the various productions of The Miracle Worker in particular) and what she's not (Valley of the Dolls especially).  And she goes into her love life, including nonsexual affairs with Frank Sinatra, Jr. and Sr., and four marriages.  She says here that son Sean (now famous as Samwise Gamgee) was the product of a brief affair with future husband John Astin, during her relationship with Desi Arnaz, Jr., but Wikipedia tells me that in 1994 Sean's blood test revealed he was the son of the man Patty married for thirteen days, Michael Tell.  Even without that tidbit, there's a lot to digest here, and I haven't even mentioned her activism for liberal causes, which became ironic when she married a drill sergeant.  (They're still married, after 27 years, which surprised me.)  The book didn't quite jell for me, but it's definitely an interesting read.

Hold on, Mr. President!

1987, 1988 Fawcett Crest edition
Sam Donaldson
Hold on, Mr. President!
Possibly bought newish for $4.95
Very worn paperback
B-

The odd thing about this autobiography is that Donaldson doesn't talk much about his life outside of his career, perhaps because he was, as he admits, a workaholic.  He goes quickly through the first almost forty years of his life (up until around the time of Watergate); and the short penultimate chapter, "Personal," is the main place he talks about his three wives and his four children.  So it didn't feel like a "life story" to me, more a series of anecdotes about (mostly) covering Presidents Carter and Reagan, along with occasional observations on journalism.  As such, the most interesting aspect of the book is the way that Reagan and his staff stage-managed the news, in contrast to the relatively open Carter administration.  Donaldson liked both men personally, and points out he never actually said the title phrase, but he knows that he was perceived as pushy and abrasive.  He seems to have a good sense of humor about his image, even including some comic strips that mock him.

Say Kids! What Time Is It?

1987, first edition, from Little, Brown and Company
Stephen Davis
Say Kids! What Time Is It?: Notes from the Peanut Gallery
Original price $16.95, purchase price $6.00
Good condition hardcover
B

This very personal look at The Howdy Doody Show was written by the son of one of the writer-directors, Howard Davis.  Stephen and Howdy were "born" the same year, late 1947, so by the time the show left the air in 1960, Stephen was an adolescent who had outgrown the show.  But as a little boy he adored the show, especially Judy Tyler, who played the beautiful Princess Summerfall Winterspring.  She died tragically young, shortly after costarring in Jailhouse Rock.  So this is a bittersweet reminiscence, and one I enjoyed more than I expected, considering I didn't grow up watching the show.  (In contrast, I'd catch episodes of The Mickey Mouse Club, the program that "killed" Howdy in the ratings in the second half of the '50s.)  I think I originally got this book because Baby Boomers were always referencing Howdy Doody.  And I clearly remember Jeff Greenfield's tongue-in-cheek 1983 article in TV Guide that claimed the show was responsible for the upheaval of the 1960s, with its effects on Baby Boomers.  The "Cowabunga" of surfers (and later Bart Simpson) did actually come from the program, although Abbie Hoffman denied being inspired by Clarabell's Yippie-like antics.

Davis talked to all the surviving cast and crew, including his father of course, and got some great stories, although some of them are unhappy, as with the firing of "untalented" Bob Keeshan, the original Clarabell the Clown, who later found fame and success as Captain Kangaroo.  Davis does his best to be even-handed, sometimes offering multiple versions of stories, letting the reader decide what really happened.  Yet, he also gives his opinion on what did and didn't work on the show.  He watched old kines (kinescopes), from the beginning to the end, sometimes remembering moments clearly, other times seeing things for the first time (as with the episodes from his preteens).