Customer Reviews

Paul and Me: Fifty-three Years of Adventures and Misadventures with My Pal Paul Newman

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I was dumbfounded to see that the people rating this book one or two stars have not read it ! They just criticized the price !
As for me, I enjoyed it tremendously. At last we have a book written by someone who actually knew Paul Newman. (What a change, compared to so-called "biographies" written by people who had never met him and who, too often, resorted to unsubstantiated tabloid stories to tarnish his reputation.)
Mr Hotchner has a great sense of humour and many anecdotes are very funny. I laughed a lot. But there are some moving moments, especially at the end and also when he tells us about a conversation about Scott (PN's son).
This is a revealing, intimate (but not too intimate) portrait of a kind and generous man. I don't understand the people who have criticized the author for "betraying" his friend's intimate thoughts. Nothing secret is revealed : concerning PN's guilt about his son, it was not a secret. But, when Scott died, the stories made up by the tabloids were awful, accusing PN of not giving a damn about his son. Here, the author shows us how much he cared for him. Relating this conversation was necessary because it does him justice.
Thank you for this lovely tribute. I just found it too short !

I am a huge fan of Paul Newman and was very excited when I heard this was being written. If you're looking for insight into his Hollywood life, then you may be a bit disappointed. (I was a little. Would have loved to hear about Paul's thoughts on his movies. The only reason it doesn't have five stars. I'm a HUGE fan of Newman's filmography.) This is mostly about Newman's Own and The Hole In the Wall Gang Camps. I found it fascinating. I learned so much about who Paul was as a person. Anyone who doesn't respect or admire how Paul lived his life outside of Hollywood must not understand just how rare a person like Paul Newman is.

Hotch has a great voice and there is a lot of humor. (The story about playing tennis with Newman and Redford was a favorite of mine.) He also captured some intimate moments in Paul's life (the death of his son, the start of the camps, Paul's illness, etc.) I was crying for the last fifteen-twenty pages when Hotch was talking about Paul's illness and how he had to miss events for his charities. It was hard to read, but I'm glad I did.

If you have even the smallest interest in Paul Newman: The Person, then I definitely recommend this book. Like I mentioned, it doesn't cover much of his time in Hollywood, but it's still worth the read.

review the book not the system. this is a refreshingly non hollywood look at a big part of hollywood.

I wasn't too impressed with Shawn Levy's Paul Newman: A Life when I read it last year. I am happy to report that I've found a much better, although still incomplete, bio of Newman, one of my favorite actors. The book, Paul and Me: Fifty-three Years of Adventures and Misadventures with My Pal Paul Newman By A. E. Hotchner, was written by the man who was, by all accounts, Newman's best friend. Hotchner was also Newman's partner in the Newman's Own enterprise which sells all manner of grocery items with all of the net income going to charity.

First the good parts; the book is extremely engaging. In fact I read it in one sitting. It is essentially the story of a 50 year friendship between Newman and Hotchner. It is full of stories about the two men's fishing career (hilariously bad, aboard a series of boat), Paul's racing exploits, the founding of Newman's Own (Newman was mixing a huge batch of salad dressing to give away to neighbors as Christmas presents. Hotchner was stirring the batch with a boat paddle!) and just hanging out. There was a very poignant section describing Newman's relationship with his son Scott, who died of a drug overdose in his 20s, and Newman's reaction Scott's death.

The only "bad" part, and it's not a slam on the book, which does exactly what it's supposed to do, is that it's incomplete. This book is not, in any way a serious biography of Paul Newman. With that caveat, I recommend it highly and enjoyed it immensely!

I read this book over the space of two days. I thoroughly enjoyed it. You will find no dirty laundry being trotted out. Hotchner was a friend and his writing never betrays his love for the man.He has given us a warm and affectionate accounting of the man we all suspected was good and decent. Hollywood may have made him famous and I did enjoy many of his movies, but what I loved most about this man was the way he quietly turned his own good fortune into good works for mankind. He earned hundreds of millions through the creation of Newman's Own food empire. This book is a testament to keeping fun and honesty forefront in business deals and how magically joy and ambition work successfully together. For Newman it was all a wonderful lark and he contributed his success to huge amounts of good luck. But reading this book will have you thinking that it was more than good luck, good looks and charisma kissing his long, wonderful celebration of life. Without a doubt his success was largely due do his giving his all and then sharing the wealth he produced. He made a decision early on not to take himself too seriously, yet he most seriously did use his many talents. He shared his good fortune with the world. He found the secret to a good life is the more you give the more your good fortunes multiply. I put down this book feeling a great deal of admiration for Paul Newman, he was a most enlightened individual and the world is a better place because he left his mark on it. We read far too much about the men whose greed and dishonesty are destroying our world and it is disheartening to all of us, but here is a story of a man who is the model of what a rich and talented man can create and give to the world. If you read this book you might feel as I do, I will forver miss Paul Newman because the world was just so much better when he was here with us! And thank you Mr. Hotchner for giving us this delightful inside look into his world.

Book review by Richard L. Weaver II, Ph.D.


It is always interesting, I think, to get information on how a person lived out of the spotlight. What was Paul Newman like as a person, not as a Hollywood actor? That is precisely what this book by Hotchner does -- provide interesting, enjoyable, and humorous anecdotes, episodes, and insights. You get an inside look at how Newman dealt with the death of his son, the start of his camps, and Paul's own illness, among other things.


This is not a biography. It is, rather, a well-selected, carefully crafted, and thoughtfully written book about a friendship of 53 years.


Having written seventeen other books, including the bestseller, Papa Hemingway, you can expect a well-written and engaging book here, and that is exactly what you get.


Deborah Mcpherson of Aubrey, Texas, in her Amazon.com review loved Hotchner's book, and she, beautifully and cogently derived the essential message that Newman left this world: "For Newman it was all a wonderful lark and he contributed his success to huge amounts of good luck. But reading this book will have you thinking that it was more than good luck, good looks and charisma kissing his long, wonderful celebration of life. Without a doubt his success was largely due do his giving his all and then sharing the wealth he produced. He made a decision early on not to take himself too seriously, yet he most seriously did use his many talents. He shared his good fortune with the world. He found the secret to a good life is the more you give the more your good fortunes multiply."


Honestly, I loved the book, the pictures, and the glimpses we derived from Hotchner's wonderful, intimate, and successful relationship with Newman.

Loved this book mainly because of how touching was the friendship between Paul Newman and A.E. Holchner. Humor came out in how well the author described the everyday occurances between these two old friends. Trust and respect between these two men came through in how they played and worked together. I laughed till I cried in learning about how Newman's Own came into being. Paul Newman thought ahead of people less fortunate than himself, as he donated all monies to helping others. He was an inspiration to everyone. I could hardly put this book down.

Connie B.

Stories that won't embarass. Neither do they enlighten. But they do show a friendship and what friends do for one another.

As a Paul Newman fan, I anticipated that this book would be a treat, and it was. What I hadn't anticipated was what a pleasure it would be to witness the banter and fun that these two men shared for over 50 years. I preferred that this book focused on Paul Newman the person vs. Paul Newman the actor. He was an amazing guy, and "Hotch" gives great insight into what made him (and his movies, and Newman's Own) so fundamentally good.

I was largely unfamiliar with A. E. Hotchner before reading this, and now at the end of it, I'm ordering his own memoir (King of the Hill) because of his likable personality. What a great tribute to a timeless friendship.

Begin any memoir or biography of a person with two basic assumptions experience demonstrates to all of us time and time again. Nobody can really know another person in all the varied roles they play with other people in their lives and nobody can ever capture the reality of any person through words or pictures, still or moving.
That said, and recognizing that this book makes no pretense to being a biography of one of the accomplished Americans of the last part of the twentieth century, I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Paul Newman. (Naturally, it will appeal to many others who simply like reading well written memoirs.)
What we have here can be pictured as dinner and a long evening of friendly drinking, alcohol, tea or coffee, with a guy who first got to know Newman through a script the young actor was to play, with whom the actor formed a business partnership which has given all its hundreds of millions of dollars profits to charity, and between whom was created a bond by many shared activities over more than half century. During this long evening, the host, who feels a need to share with others what the friendship meant to him and why it did so, speaks incisively, clearly, and entertainingly of what his friend was like and why we would have liked him as well were we to have known him. Of course, it helps that our host, during the many years in which his friend, Newman, was one of the fine actors of his time, was one of the successful writers of the period. He makes his subject live and breathe as well as one can and leaves us with a sense of knowing this actor just a bit more. Illusion created by an expert writer? Perhaps, but then both were in crafts devoted to making the fanciful seem real.
At any rate, I accepted the idea that the author gives us a picture which, while partial, is real to him. This is, by no means the, or a, definitive biography. It is a very easily read word-picture of someone he believes was one very fine guy. An excellent travel book, goes well while eating lunch alon,e or just filling time.