Krishna
This is one of the earlier works of Sheldon and all the hallmarks are there, the twists, the struggle from poverty to power, and the ill deeds catching up with you. Nice to read.
We have reviewed some of his books earlier here. See, for a sample, the reviews of Tell Me Your Dreams and Rage of Angels
After retiring from the job of a purser in the cruise ship SS Bretagne, Claude Dessard sets up a bistro in Nice but never tires of telling the story of a bizarre day on the ship towards the end of his service. Jill Temple was on the ship and the President sent her flowers before it departed.
First the theatre doors were locked and someone was watching a movie, contrary to rules. Then Jill totally devastated after an argument with an unknown person; the theatre full of blood. All this ties up in the last scene where you understand what it all means.
The story shifts to Paul Templarhaus, who married Freida for her money and she, when she figures out that he is good for nothing, first takes over his business and then rules his life. She forces him to keep having sex until she is pregnant and the son Tobias, when born, is fully under her thumb.
She dreams of Toby being a star and he goes to New York to make his fortune but struggles. His mom died in the meanwhile.
He finally screws his way up a bit and engineers visit by a famous director who was looking for a new lead and floors the audience with his comic act. The director decides to take him on and get his act polished.
Meanwhile, he gets more and more famous and indiscriminately beds women who are his fans. One such, Missie is the mistress of a thug who owns a large hotel empire (called Caruso) and he forces Toby to marry her – because she needed to be ‘gotten rid of’ when Caruso’s wife got wind of his side activity.
After many years of forced marriage Toby is relieved that his wife Minnie died in childbirth. He then gets more and more famous but is lonely.
In the meantime, Josephine Czinsky is caught with a crazy, controlling religious fanatic of a mother and is ridiculed by all her friends. She is in love with David Kenyon, a friend’s brother. They grow close and David hates Mexicans since an elder sister was raped by a Mexican gardener and the sister lost her mind and was committed to a mental asylum for life.
When Josephine gives him her virginity willingly and finds out that he is marrying another girl anyway, she runs away to Hollywood, leaving behind the city and also her name. She is now Jill. (He was tricked by the girl and the mother but Josephine did not know that)
She struggles to find roles and slowly moves up. Meanwhile, Tony is a super hit when he is called to entertain the President due to all the reserve comedians having some trouble and makes the most of it.
He now is golden and is booked in the next movie by Sam Winters, the movie mogul.
Meanwhile Jill shacks up with Alan and he moves in. He just drinks and watches television when she works and earns but he is even worse than that. Convincing her that he has got her an acting part, he takes her to a shady place, drugs her and she is raped by multiple people for a porno shoot. He disappears taking the money, and we, the readers, discover that this is his modus operandi and that he has supplied many girls to the outfit before. In addition, he has a wife and kids in Florida. That is the last she ever saw of ‘Alan’. In the movie, she is billed with her real name so that her native town would know what she is really doing. She has been telling her fanatically religious mom that she has been ‘on the brink of stardom’.
Her mom dies, and she learns to sleep around for bit parts. Anyone who would give her a part got a piece of her. She finds herself getting older, and is jaded and angry at the whole crowd. So when Tony saw her as a new conquest (when she got a bit part in his show) he invites her ‘to dinner’ and she spurns him repeatedly – knowing that it is just a one night stand for him. She also has heard of his rude temperament. No one has spurned Tony in years and he gets obsessed with her, and her terrified assistant swear that she is ‘not seeing anyone and is not playing around’ for fear that he would discover that Jill put out for them but spurned Tony!
She manages to marry Tony against the best efforts of his friends and one by one. At the height of glory, when he is about to receive the award for lifetime achievement, he falls down and has a stroke that paralyzes him completely. Jill obsessively nurses him back to health and they are the darlings of the town again, this time she getting an equal share of attention for doing the near impossible.
At this time, Clifton Lawrence, whom she fired as a writer and who could not find another career, hears by chance about Jill’s adult movies and decided to seek vengeance at last.
When Tony gets another stroke, this one irreversible, Jill is in despair and lets it show. Tony then starts harassing her mentally – and telekinetically – and she lives in terror. At that time David comes back into her life, having lost his wife and confessing everything to her. Her old desire for him is rekindled.
She realizes that the only way she can be free of Tony is if something happened to him and the doctors predict that he is good for ‘another twenty years maybe’ though he would be in a vegetative state.
She then takes matters into her own hands and arranges for Tony to have an accident and drown in the swimming pool in the apartment, in a chilling scene.
After a decent interval, she wants to marry David and they plan to marry aboard the ship. The agent Clifton Lawrence shows up with a reel in his hands and waylays David.
What happens next is chilling. Finally, the ending is interesting.
Good story. Not too many twists in there, but it is all tied in nicely.
7/10
– – Krishna