Customer Reviews

Ginny Good

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is one of those books that looks as though it's going to be good, but after a few pages, the novelty of the writing wears thin. I couldn't continue. If the writing had been better, perhaps I would have been interested in the unfolding events, but the choppy and mannered style focused me on the writing itself. Like acting, writing is good when it is not noticed as trying too hard.

I often wondered why the IMDB has a minimum number of words that must be written before they accept a review. Silly me. Now I know. I read "Ginny Good" recently, partially because of the subject matter and also due to the SERIOUS reviews posted here. Imagine my surprise tonight when I read 20 (or more) postings in the last week alone, all in a row, all very short, all insulting the book --several in racist dialogue -- and all written by people who HAVE NEVER reviewed any prior books for Amazon.It is fairly easy to conclude that most or all of them are fakes, but they have succeeded in reducing the book to only "3" stars. Nasty and deliberate work on somebody's part.

Here's what I thought -- and I actually read the book, folks.

If you're over 40 and/or have an interest in what San Francisco was like in the early days of the hippie and anti-war movement, this is a great story. And unlike James Frey's rehab fiction, it sings with real people and real events. It is also beautifully written.

Ginnny Good was a sad creature, probably bi-polar, and an alcoholic. The sixties were full of people like her.In case some readers don't understand, excessive alcohol, excessive drugs and excessive sex were common back then. There was no AIDS. There was not a Rehab hospital in every town and because there wasn't,there was a high tolerance for what we now might call dysfunctional behavior. Nobody thought of it as dysfunctional then. It was "doing your own thing." People did not judge other people. There were no prescriptions like Prozac or Elavil or gyms for exercise and an emphasis on health -- although that is when a lot of the health food (vegan) movement began. Women were still second class citizens for the most part and black people had just gotten the right to vote in a dozen or so states. Students smoked dope and read Kierkegard and took illegal drugs because they were there. You cannot compare the sixties to today's standards anymore than you might compare the Civil War era to the 1920's. It was what it was -- and Gerard Jones tells it that way.

His prose are carefully crafted and the narrative is utterly compelling. The story of Ginny and Elliot and Gerard is heartbreaking at times and will stay with me for a long time, but it is very real -- and very good.

If you order this book hoping for a trippy-hippie fairy tale, you are going to be disappointed. More than being about the 60s, Ginny Good seems to happen in spite of the 60s: "It was groovy. It was far out. It was over."

The characterization is the real meat of the story. At times brutally funny, at other times emotionally devastating, this memoir-esque novel follows the thread of three friends as they weave in and out of one another's lives. Each of them seems to be wondering, "How can I settle into a normal life after this?" They always want too much from one another, and the fallout of their entanglements is often catastrophic.

Jones strikes the tone of someone whose experience was so authentic that he does not need to sermonize or idealize it. The 60s happened like every other decade, and people happened along with it. His narration is excellent, and his direct, punchy sentences effortlessly carry the load of every emotion from bleak absurdity to childlike wonder. For anyone who has ever loved and lost or simply wondered, "How do I go on after this?" Gerard Jones shows us that time doesn't heal wounds so much as language does.

An autobiographical account of a relationship with a Zelda Fitzgerald type -brilliant, rich, beautiful, alcoholic- femme fatale, starting in San Francisco in the sixties.
The main reason I suppose most of us read it is because of the WEB site. Gerard Jones is the patron saint of rejected writers. The WEB site is a wonderful rant against the agents and publishers who have spurned his manuscripts. It would have been a logical culmination, on coming to read his magnum opus, that it should have been unreadable trash. We could have smiled smugly, telling ourselves (at least myself) that the poor fellow is self-deluded and grandiose, but we have been kind enough to buy his book (at least I did) so we can snicker with a clear conscience.
Unfortunately it turns out that it's quite good, in fact, lets face it, grr, grr, it's very good. Looking back, after having enjoyed it, what were the faults that led agents and publishers to fail to pick it out from the thousands.
In the first place I suppose it's too long. After a brilliant first few chapters the action settles down to Ginny and Gerard get together; Ginny and Gerard split up; Ginny gets drunk; Gerard does drugs. We lose interest in the question "what will become of them?" In the final chapters there is a denouement, but this is hurried. A stepdaughter gets a paragraph. Four grandchildren get two sentences.
In the second place I'd have to echo one of the rejectionists who said that we are overstocked with reminiscences of sixties hippiedom. The theme is hackneyed. I compared this in my mind with two semi-autobiographies I had recently read, Flynn's "Another Bulls...t Night in Suck City" and Burroughs's "Dry" Each one describes a tormented alcohol-soaked relationship, but each is startlingly original. The things that happened to Gerard were not all that unusual and it ends up being the autobiography of an ordinary man, or one who would be ordinary if it wasn't for the WEB site.
Maybe he'll have to abandon the WEB site now that he's published a book.

It is a pretty fascinating book. Really strong first-person voice, loved the opening, all the young love bit, fraught, fraught, fraught. The story gets sadder as it goes on, not a happy-ending kind of thing, but a fascinating look at a specific time and some pretty specific places. Very ALIVE all the way through. Really enjoyed it.

The author writes: "I've been writing stuff on and off all my adult life."

Having endured GINNY GOOD, I'd have to vote for 'off.'

When I first stumbled upon this guy's website, I thought that he was insane. He has blasted every entertainment agent in Hollywood and NY to try to get this "thing" made into a film. The writing is terrible and the plot is atrocious. Somebody asked why there are so many 5 star reviews. If you notice the writing in all of the 5 star reviews, you will see a voice of somebody trying to sound like somebody else. This guy is writing his own reviews. He's a complete joke in the entertainment industry. Don't buy his book!

If you are incapable of appreciating original thought and a playful, truly original writing style, then by all means, go hither to the library and find some NY Times bestselling author to appease your limitations. Because Ginny Good is a romp of a read, with the kind of natural comedic timing that makes you feel like you're listening to a story being told by a friend, maybe while sitting in your backyard together watching fireflies buzzing around and drinking a beer.

Though the story is set mainly in the 60s and 70s, and certainly captures some of the cultural flavor of the times, it is a life story and a love story. Ginny Good is a flawed person, as are all the characters in the book, and the author does a rare thing with his characters here - he doesn't push you to judge them, he presents them with their charm, their quirks and their failings, and lets you react as you choose ~ love them, hate them, pity them, loathe them, do what you will with them, but do it on your own terms. That kind of original authorship is priceless. Authors so often force you into siding with characters, and I often end up tossing the book within 50 or so pages because of that kind of weak, manipulative writing.

I had the extraordinary experience of falling over this book in a bookstore in Ashland, Oregon, the hometown of the author. But for the title of the book I never would have known the pleasure of reading this story. (As my name is 'Ginny' also, how could I resist the title!) Ashland is a lovely town where many of the hippies of the Beat Generation ended up, along with their Birkinstocks. In fact, just as an aside, there is a shoe repair shop in Ashland that advertises its specialty in "Birkinstock Repairs." Hilarious!

Read this book with an open mind and heart and you will enjoy it as I have, laughing and crying and wincing, remembering another era long lost, remembering youth and lost loves with that stinging pain/pleasure of nostalgia.

A delightful, unique book, written by an author we can hope will get off his lazy ass and produce some more joyful romps of a read in the near future for his readers to enjoy!

Ginny Good is a well written, entertaining work of popular fiction. It is just the type of commercial, pop culture navel gazing pulp that drives the U.S. book market, and that Gerard Jones fulminates about in his various rants across cyberspace. His descriptions are articulate and at times ingenious, but they tend to ramble. Moreover, the adolescent skirt chasing gets very old very quickly. The observations are keen on only the most superficial level: this is a very street level view of society, forget about a bird's eye view, forget about a larger context for these social phenomena or any deeper motivation for the characters' actions beyond ego gratification. The novel does not demand any deep consideration from the reader, and thus it is an easy, pleasant read. This is probably its greatest appeal. It would make a great graphic novel: maybe this Gerard Jones should morph with the other Gerard Jones and start working on it. Someone else (NOT named Gerard Jones) might be able to turn it into a good script to pitch to Disney. All in all, not anywhere near the masterpiece of this century (now in its ninth year).

Lots of people have lots to say about this book. Some love or hate the author, some claim to have known the book's heroine and therefore feel a sense of possession over the subject matter. Scr*w the lot of them, I say! This is a great story and it is so very well written. That's all that needs to be said. I mean, a story that can maintain the chatty companionship of Gerard Jones's voice and make you want you to turn each page belies the effort and skill that has gone into the creation of this book. And so what if he has gone to great lengths to publicise it on the internet - more kudos to Gerard, I say. Buy it, read it and make up your own mind - what you won't be is disappointed.