Amazon.com Review
Veteran journalist Sheila Weller's childhood memoir is as starkly compelling as it is emotionally and historically complex, lifting the veil on a life of rarified privilege. Weller's father was a pioneering Los Angeles neurosurgeon, her mother the acclaimed Hollywood gossip columnist Helen Hover, and uncle Herman Hover owned Tinseltown's most famous nightspot, Ciro's. Nonetheless, Weller reveals a childhood haunted by dysfunction and denial, a hidden familial drama played out in the idyllic village that was Beverly Hills in the '40s and '50s, and one that segues to dark tragedy as it wends inexorably toward a final act scarred by scandal and life-shattering violence. Weller's richly detailed, emphatic prose skillfully interweaves ruminations on the phenomenon of American Jewish reinvention that drove her family of overachievers, with observations on the Old Hollywood movers and shakers who were her neighbors, friends, and casual acquaintances--reminiscences that are all the more poignant filtered through the wondrous eyes of a child. No mere star-studded autobiography, Weller's work here is framed by an almost palpable sense of personal exorcism and, crucially, a quest for ultimate familial redemption. It's an enlightening personal journey, one whose troubling tales of domestic disconnection may seem all-too-empathetic to many, yet one that ultimately finds a place of warm, if bittersweet, understanding.
--Jerry McCulley
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Journalist Weller (Raging Heart: The Intimate Story of the Tragic Marriage of O.J. Simpson and Nicole Brown Simpson) reconstructs the social striving and psychological excesses that plagued her family and relatives, owners of the posh Hollywood nightspot Ciro's. In the early 20th century, her father (Daniel Weller), mother (Helen Hover) and uncle (Herman Hover) moved to California. They were New York Jews moving west seeking fame and self-reinvention, she explains. They found it: Daniel became a respected neurosurgeon, Helen a celebrity journalist and Herman the proprietor of Ciro's. Much high life followed, until 1958, when Herman tried to kill his brother-in law, who was involved with Herman's wife. Divorce, professional decline, the closing of Ciro's, Sheila's estrangement from her father and more followed before that generation of her family died. While Weller claims to have written this as a love letter to her family, she doesn't succeed in making readers feel their story is exceptional or representative enough to merit telling. A few images, like the Hover family heading west, are iconic. It's also entertaining to learn the intricacies of Ciro's design and tidbits about stars like Sammy Davis Jr. But when Weller concludes that sometimes "empathy and epiphany is not in the cards," readers may be left wondering why Weller bothered to tell the story. Despite the meticulous research and American themes, Weller's memoir doesn't enliven her family or enlighten her readers.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
