When I was 15, no one could see me. No one who really mattered, that is, which – in my sophomoric myopia – revolved around a hottie senior boy named Artie. Artie was tall, handsome, smart and, on occasion, borrowed his father’s tweed sport coat that had suede elbow patches and made him look like quite a promising young captain of industry. In retrospect, he reminded me of John Davidson (which just goes to show what conservative, white bread taste I had in an era that fostered The Beatles, free love, draft-dodging, and Mary Quant cosmetics).
There are numerous self-help books on the market that enable people to cope with major life transitions - divorce, the death of a spouse, the move to a new neighborhood, the onset of empty-nest syndrome. Nothing attacks life changes better, though, than the wit and mirth of Catherine Goldhammer's "Still Life With Chickens". Her conversational style is hilarious and reads as if she is sitting across the table from you over coffee and talking about her move to a fixer-upper house by the sea.
BEHIND EVERY GREAT ROMANCE IS A STRUGGLING WRITER
Can Life really imitate Art? When sophomore Laurie Preston is chosen to be lead screenwriter for a movie her high school is producing, she sees the chance of a lifetime to scribble a romantic script that will finally make the boy of her dreams say the words she's been longing to hear. Unfortunately, the senior hottie who won her star-struck heart from the very first moment she saw him has yet to discover she even exists.
I've had this book sitting on my desk for a month now, and I keep meaning to write a review of it. The problem is, it's an awfully hard book to review. This satire of everything stars Misha Vainberg, son of the 1,238th richest man in Russia. Misha's lone goal in life is to return to the US, where he spent his college and young adult years, and where he has a girlfriend of sorts. Alas, he cannot return -- his father, a ganster, has killed an American, and the U.S. Embassy won't let him get a visa.
