Biographies/Autobiographies

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

Nick Tosches—when he's on, which isn't a given—is exciting as a writer in 
many of the same ways Pynchon is exciting as a writer. "Dino—Living 
High in the Dirty Business of Dreams" is Nick's best book. Everything 
about this novelistic bio is inspired, partictularly the quality of Nick's 
writing.

Here's a randomly selected passage:

           Dean turned forty-six in June. All he seemed to remember were 
           the colors of breezes. Long ago in a hotel room in Cleveland, 
           a rainy early-autumn gust had come through an open window 
           and stirred the curtains like sighing, sullen ghosts; and he had 
           felt something. Now his oldest boy, Craig, was a man. He had 
           joined the army, been sent off to Germany, had met a Tucson 
           girl named Sandy Pfiffer there. Now, on June 29, Craig's 
           twenty-first birthday, they were marrying.

           Other breezes, other nights: Claudia was nineteen now. She 
           wanted to be an actress, a singer, something. Sinatra's 
           daughter Nancy also wanted to be an actress, a singer, 
           something. Her father was giving her a part in a picture, a 
           half-assed plug for Pepsi-Cola called For Those Who Think 
           Young, that Sinatra Enterprises was making with James 
           Darren at Paramount. Dean talked to Frank and got Claudia 
           a part. They would start filming in August. She was in love, 
           she said. Some guaglione fresh from a fucking Juarez divorce. 
           Gavin Murrell, a name like a character in one of these stupid 
           fucking pictures. In July. she ran off and married him. That 
           was bad enough. She divorced him just as suddenly. Dean 
           sat her down and shut the door. She left the house in tears; 
           and the two of them did not speak for months.

           Nick Tosches, Dino—Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams
           pg. 352 

Very much like Pynchon, Tosches offers up a well researched revisionist history, 
noting the real lines of power in Hollywood, not to mention Stubenville, Pa. 
Tosches also offers up a somewhat Luddite perspective of technology:

           RCA had marketed its first television receivers in 1939, and now, 
           nine years later, there were still fewer than a million sets in 
           America, and almost half of those were in New York. Those 
           who had them had not been able to see much. But now those 
           ugly little devices were beginning to hum and flicker with 
           gathering gales of gray inscet fury, joy and plague, mediocrity 
           and madness, from that vast funhouse maw of metastic delights. 
           [op. cit, pg. 164]
           

One of the things that Tosches does well [spectacularly, truth to tell] is 
switch voices, have a wide variety of voices of narration and character. 
In particular, I love his mimicing of the bizzare line delivery of a well 
known actor in the hilarious Robert Stack poems:

                      When I, as Robert Stack,
                      Go in for the Operation

           When I, as Robert Stack,
           go in for the operation, I will know
           the scent of alcohol on cotton, which
           I have known before; but will know 
           the scent as well of my true soul,
           of that mystery unsolved, indwelling,
           beneath my hide.
           And I will dress conservatively,
           hem to patella and no whorish
           neckline, and as ever, will stand tall;
           and the breasts beneath my Burberry
           will know pride, and, though in my 
           autumn,
           desire shall be mine to be fulfilled.
           And I, as Robert Stack, will know
           not only the feel of nylon
           upon the varicosity of truth
           but will know as well the pulse
           of moon. of tide within the vessel of my
           kind, and the armor of my sterness
           will know softness, and I will smile
           to behold the print of pale magenta
           upon the teacup in my hands, held just so,
           as I drink at last from life in freedom
           and in full, in Lycra, and in pride.
           And thus I go to Denver, with heartbeat
           that is calm, knowing I do only as Jack
           Palance would do, were he but half the
           man, or half the woman, that I be. No, let
           Jack sit in shame in blue kimono with
           houseboy at his side. I am done with all
           such doings, am done with all such lies.
           And when I say that men, they are 
           such fools, I will know, mesdames, whereof
           I speak, for I did walk among them.

[Nick Tosches reader, Da Capo press, pgs. 455/456]


———————————————————————————————

          . . . .Tosches has wound up reality so tightly with this book that 
          once you've read it you may feel the need to reread it every 
          few months or so before it all begins to . . . unravel.

http://www.forbisthemighty.com/acidlogic/mm_dino.htm

          . . . .Criticism's here state that you don't see the man behind 
          the facade, how can this be a criticism when it forms the whole 
          backbone and fabric of the man, Dean Martin WAS an enigma, 
          not to be catagorised or pidgeon holed, later books written by 
          members of his own family bear this out, a very complex and 
          introspective individual not renowned for showing emotion or 
          weakness who was impossible to fully fathom, Tosches here 
          take's the author common liberty when faced with the issue of 
          frequently writing Dean's feelings from his own viewpoint, an 
          often dangerous road to take but here you can't help but 
          appreciate the author's obvious affinity with his subject and 
          the book is all the more enjoyable for it. . . .
 
http://tinyurl.com/3c65w7

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Dave Monroe" <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
> Anyone have any recommendations?  Wide open ...