ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 29, 1996 TAG: 9610020002
SECTION: BOOKS PAGE: 4 EDITION: METRO
Interviews reveal double personality of Jerry Lewis
Reviewed by JOHN MONTGOMERY
KING OF COMEDY: The Life and Art of Jerry Lewis. By Shawn Levy. St. Martin's Press. $24.95.
A young film critic of modest credentials based in Portland, Ore., Shawn Levy was granted two face-to-face interviews with comedian Jerry Lewis in preparation for this book.
In their first meeting, Lewis was effusive, entertaining, hospitable and cooperative, cheerfully endorsing the definitive biographical project. But in their second interview, Lewis was curt, boorish, vulgar and wildly unpredictable, ripping a tape from Levy's recorder as he reconsidered a tirade brought on by a difficult question. The outburst marked the end of Lewis' role as collaborator, but in Levy's mind, it established the beginning of an objective work.
The polar personalities of Lewis, supported by voluminous research, make for an interesting portrayal. They're also the foundation for a clever, mixed-up, red-white-and-blue dust jacket graphic that's half-clown, half-Muscular Dystrophy pitchman.
With more than 50 years on his resume as an international entertainer, Lewis will be remembered as a top draw on stage and screen, adored by the French. Levy goes further, presenting a multifaceted genius who should be recognized as an innovative stand-up; an actor of some repute (this book's title comes from a 1983 film with Robert DeNiro, in which Lewis played a rare serious role); a creative and tireless film director; and a charity huckster who has raised more than $1 billion for MDA and garnered a Nobel Peace Prize nomination.
With singer Dean Martin, who died just after this book went to press, Lewis was half of the most successful two-man comedy team in history, before it disbanded more than 40 years ago. Lewis' zany style has influenced generations of performers including Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, David Letterman and Jim Carrey. His joke writers have included Norman Lear, Mel Brooks and Dick Cavett. His directorial students: Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas and Peter Bogdanovich.
A remake of "The Nutty Professor," perhaps Lewis' best comedy, is currently a box-office hit starring Eddie Murphy.
Just last year, at the age of 69, Lewis starred in "Damn Yankees." His $40,000-a-week salary earned him the distinction of being the highest-paid entertainer ever to appear on Broadway, a pinnacle he had reached previously in other media.
The dark side of Jerry Lewis is given equal time in this detailed account. A father at 19 - and, five children later, once again at 65 - Lewis was farmed out by his own parents, small-time vaudevillians. Battles with his first wife of 36 years, six sons, drugs, co-workers and the press are well-chronicled.
Lewis maintains that he once was one of the 10 most recognizable faces on Earth. Levy agrees but says that if you put the tempestuous Lewis on the list, it really becomes a Top 11.
John Montgomery is president of the Blue Ridge Writers Conference.
Spy novel thrills, drives reviewer to drink
Reviewed by Bob Alotta
EXTREME DENIAL. By David Morrell. Warner Books. $23.95.
If someone had said that by reading a spine-tingling spy novel this reviewer would charge out to the liquor store and purchase all the trappings for a margarita, I'd have said they were nuts. My wife and I have been bourbon drinkers ever since we got married almost 36 years ago. But, get the tequila and everything else was what we did after reading David Morrell's latest thriller.
"Extreme Denial" begins when anti-terrorist CIA operative Steve Decker oversees the work of an incompetent younger agent, Brian McKittrick, in Rome. Because of McKittrick's stupidity, 23 American tourists are killed, 43 wounded. Decker gets the responsibility for the failure, because McKittrick's father is a power in the intelligence community. Decker calls it quits and heads for a new life, in Sante Fe. A year later, he's working for a real estate agency - not The Agency -all over again. They fall in love, which is difficult for a former anti-terrorist CIA agent.
Then, things start to happen. First, men break into his house and try to kill both Decker and Beth. Decker thinks that McKittrick is coming after him. Then, he realizes it is not him but Beth they want. When she disappears, he launches a one-man campaign to find her. Along the way, he finds her past is as dark and mysterious as his own. Prepare yourself for an all-night stand. Neither my wife nor I could put the book down before we hit the last page.
Rights to "Extreme Denial" have already been purchased by Michael Douglas and Paramount.
By the way, Decker only drinks margaritas - done a special way. You have to read the book to get the connection, but here's the recipe to make a single "Extreme Denial Margarita": 1 1/4 oz. tequila (100 percent blue agave), 3/4 oz. Cointreau, 1 1/2 oz. fresh lemon juice, and the wedge of a fresh lime.
Salt the lip of your glass, and serve well chilled. We make ours in the morning and stick them in the freezer for dinnertime cocktails. Then, open your copy of the book, and enjoy both.
Bob Alotta with Lynn Eckman, will lead sessions about book reviewing at the Blue Ridge Writers Conference.
Scam happens in Provence
Reviewed by Lynn Eckman
ANYTHING CONSIDERED. By Peter Mayle. Alfred A. Knopf. $23.
Resplendent with shimmering light, the sea and mountains, Provence enthralls Peter Mayle. He writes about the area with admiration and affection for its charm and its quirky inhabitants in a way as contagious as giggles.
Like Mayle, L. Bennett, a young Englishman in this novel, wants to continue to live in sybaritic splendor in southern France, but his resources are vanishing. He places an ad in the International Herald Tribune stating that he will consider anything in the way of interesting or unusual work. The job that results, "a harmless deception" at first, soon balloons into a full-scale, double-whammied scam that places him in situations equally perilous and hilarious.
Above all else the French value food and wine. Thus when a formula for growing artificial truffles is developed, it is worth millions to Julien Poe, Bennett's employer. However, the briefcase containing the formula is stolen, and Bennett, with the help of a beautiful American, must retrieve it. Therein lies the plot, as exaggerated and improbable as the unscrupulous characters.
Unlike the natives who appear in Mayle's other works, these people, including Bennett and his cohort, are all less than admirable, but they do hold attention. I particularly enjoyed the malapropisms of one Tuzzi, a Corsican mafioso who speaks of "sour gripes" and "skating on thin eggs," and who sometimes forgets his "polites." He is only one of many wacky wonders in this engaging romp.
"Anything Considered" will provide a happy holiday for anyone fortunate enough to spend time in Peter Mayle's company.
Lynn Eckman with Bob Alotta, will lead sessions about book reviewing at the Blue Ridge Writers Conference.
BOOKMARKS
Southern stories powerful
Reviewed by EDWARD FALCO
MISSISSIPPI HISTORY. By Steve Yarbrough. University of Missouri Press. $14.95.
How is it that Blacksburg and Roanoke turn up in Steve Yarbrough's "Mississippi History"? Because "Mississippi History" is a short-story collection, and for several years Yarbrough lived in Blacksburg, while teaching at Virginia Tech. These days, Yarbrough lives in Fresno, Calif., but his stories are deeply and unquestionably Southern in their issues and concerns. As the editors of Granta recently discovered when they short-listed him among America's best writers under 40, he is a remarkably good short-story writer, one of the best the South has turned out in recent years.
The stories in "Mississippi History" are unfailingly powerful in their rendering of character and event. Yarbrough's interests are many and his range is wide, but his stories always come down to a particular person in a particular place to whom something important is happening. In "Hungarian Stew," Malina, a Virginia Tech graduate student from Poland, finds herself in Indianola, Miss., at Christmas. She is with a man she loves who is not her husband, with a family she likes that is not her family and in a country that is not her country. In the end, the choice she makes reveals her character. By the final pages of "A Life of Ease," Joe Aikman, the new preacher in Indianola's Beaverdam Baptist church, will find himself in a roadside bar with the wife of one of his parishioners. He, too, will make a revealing choice.
The stories in "Mississippi History" often develop under the pressure of racial tension, and nowhere is Yarbrough stronger as a writer than when he writes about the essential dignity of men and women who suffer poverty.
Yarbrough's Blacksburg connection should add a measure of interest for readers in the Roanoke area, but it really doesn't much matter where you come from when you read these stories. Yarbrough is certainly a Southern writer, but more importantly, he's a writer with a profound respect for the decency of individuals, and his true subject is the human heart.
Edward Falco will lead sessions about writing short fiction at the Blue Ridge Writers Conference.
Blue Ridge Writers Conference on Saturday
The 12th annual Blue Ridge Writers Conference will be held Saturday in Olin Hall at Roanoke College. Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. and the keynote address by poet Nikki Giovanni will begin at 9:30 a.m. Morning and afternoon sessions are scheduled and will be followed by a forum and book signing reception. There is a registration fee. For information call (540) 375-2354.
Pass the Kleenex, please
Reviewed by MARY ANN JOHNSON
THE NOTEBOOK. By Nicholas Spark. Warner Books. $16.95.
Move over Robert James Waller, your successor has arrived. "The Notebook" is bound to be the next "Bridges of Madison County." Yes, it is sentimental. No, it is not fine literature. "The Notebook" is a simplistic love story that touches the emotions while the mind protests. The publisher sent a packet of Kleenex along with the book; that should tell you something.
The setting is New Bern, N.C. Noah Calhoun has returned from World War II and is restoring an old plantation house while he gets his life back in order. Between carpentry tasks and forays up the creek in his canoe, he rocks on the porch reading poetry and daydreaming about his first love. One day, of course, as he sits rocking, she drives up. The cliched formula is reliable, and you can imagine what happens.
Something more, however, is offered. The love story of the past is surrounded by the love story of the present, and the author changes voice from first person to third to connote the difference. In the present-day sections, Noah and Allie are elderly, and life has brought them some of the difficulties that face us all. Their love, of course, triumphs over the tragedies of old age.
This last is what will cause readers to pass the book along to friends, buy copies for parents, and spread the word that will put it on the best-seller list and make the movie, already planned, an actor's dream.
Mary Ann Johnson is book page editor.
LENGTH: Long : 197 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. Cover of "King of Comedy." 2. (headshot) Mayle.by CNBGraphic: Blue Ridge Writers Conference.