Day: March 5, 2013

I’m loving Pages, the Apple drawing program for the IPad. Still playing with the colors.

Much as I have derided them, the chickens can appear in a beautiful and graceful way, and they did so this afternoon. The walk slowly in circles, groom themselves, cluck and dart their eyes around, looking for the last scraps of food, taking in the last rays of the sun.  I love watching the chicken walk.

The skies cleared tonight, and I saw this lovely sunset down the road from our farm. A meditation for me, there is little as beautiful to me as a farm by a field in golden light.

This review is published in conjunction with Battenkill  Books, my local bookstore, a great independent bookstore. If you are interested in reading “Little Known Facts,” please consider buying it from Battenkill Books. You can call 518 677-2515, or you can e-mail Connie Brooks at [email protected] or visit the store’s website. They take Paypal and ship anywhere in the world. It is your choice, of course, but the few dollars you might save going online may not be worth the passing of bookstores from our world. I am the store’s Recommender-In-Chief and am available Saturdays from ll a.m. to 1 p.m. on the phone, in the store, via e-mail. Thanks.

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“Little Known Facts” (Bloomsbury) is a great read and a very timely and savvy novel. It centers on the life of Renn Ivins, a Hollywood superstar (think Harrison Ford) in his fifties, gorgeous, successful, famous and rich. The interesting thing about this novel, and it is very interesting, is that it doesn’t focus on Ivins as much as it does on his family – his ex-wife (wives), his children Will and Anna, his current girlfriend, a young star 30 years his junior. The family dynamics are mesmerizing as Renn’s children struggle to find their own identities in a world that is mostly interested in them because of their famous father. We know about celebrities – at least we think we do – but what about the people who have to live with them?

Ivins is a tough father to have. He is handsome, charismatic, brilliant. He is distant, self-absorbed, viscerally unfaithful. He provides generous trusts which threaten to cripple his children. He is traveling most of the time, has homes all over the world, is surrounded by a cyclonic cloud of cell-toting aides: psychics, fans, managers, trainers, publicists, cooks, drivers, agents, hangers on. Everyone he knows wants money from him, and he has given his psychic two million dollars for breast cancer treatments, not entirely certain she is ill, since he never actually sees her.

His world is completely unreal, he is wealthy beyond imagination, and he is incapable of fidelity to his partner or consistency and honest with for  children. “Little Known Facts” brings us into this very American world of celebrity, the very highs and the very lows.

The novel opens with Will being summoned to New Orleans by his father to work as an assistant on Renn’s movie – he is the director – about Hurricane Katrina. Will instantly falls in love with Elise, the co-star in the movie, who has just begun an affair with his father. Much of the novel centers on the way the two men deal with this impossible situation. The book gives each member of a family a chapter, sometimes two, told in their own voices. Each has a particular issue and set of revealing experiences with Renn, who struggles to relate well with any of them. He doesn’t really struggle that hard, he is too busy winning Oscars, taking protein shakes and getting laid.

The novel has a kind of carousel effect, in that we are constantly circling Renn amidst all of the movement and glitter,  putting difference pieces of his life together until we get the sense of the whole man. It really works. We get our portrait of the superstar through the memories and emotions of the people around him.

Yes, there is money and fame and adoration, but this world is dehumanizing  for everyone, including Renn – paparazzi, people in restaurants taking photos with their cell phones, beautiful people throwing themselves at him all day long, corrupt managers, needy siblings, the horrific pressure to be healthy and stay healthy and handsome. This is a word where you talk to your psychic much more than your kids, and your friends follow fan magazines to know who you are with at the moment.

Renn is driving his son Will mad. The two cannot find a healthy place in their stormy relationship. They can barely have a conversation that doesn’t explode in rage and misunderstanding. Will is lost in his fancy condo, adrift and depressed, mooning over the woman his father is sleeping with.  Anna seems more stable – she is studying to be a family practitioner – but her father’s long shadows fall over her life as well.  It is very clever plotting to write a celebrity book that is not about a celebrity, but rather the people who live around him. Superstars cast very deep shadows, they can’t really be normal, nothing about their lives is remotely normal. Thus, nothing normal can really be expected of them. They are off the hook.

It makes sense in a certain way that almost everyone around the children of celebrities – lovers and friends, teachers and storekeepers – are much more interested in their father than them. Thus, there is no way for them to get a grip on reality, no way to know who to trust.

Many people believe that if they could have wish on earth, it would be to be a famous movie star. They might make a different choice after reading “Little Known Facts.” The price of fame is indeed high, as are the rewards. The book is surprisingly gentle, for all of the harsh truths it offers up. Christine Sneed brings us right into the world of celebrity and ends up with a story about the struggle for identity. I recommend this book highly. It will change the way you think about celebrity, reminds us how very real they are. It helps us see once again that money does not bring security, fame has nothing to do with happiness, and we will all, one way or another, fight to find our own identity in the world. The alternative is not bearable.

__ If you want to buy the book, consider Battenkill Books. 518 677-2515 or [email protected]

Random House approved the final cover design for “The Second Chance Dog: A Love Story,” my book about Maria, Frieda and me, due out in October of this year. I love the color and am happy they chose my photo of Frieda, a great dog with a great hear. My Helldog. She brought Maria and I together. I very much look forward to the publication of this book. I love love stories, and especially love them when I’m in them.