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Summary
Summary
John Connolly conjures the Golden Age of Hollywood in this moving, literary portrait of Laurel & Hardy--two men who found their true selves in a comedic partnership.
"AMBITIOUS . . . EVOKES THE STYLE OF SAMUEL BECKETT." -- NEW YORK TIMES
"BRILLIANT." -- SEATTLE BOOK REVIEW
"EXTRAORDINARY." -- LIBRARY JOURNAL (STARRED REVIEW)
An unforgettable testament to the redemptive power of love, as experienced by one of the twentieth century's greatest performers.
When Stan Laurel is paired with Oliver Hardy, affectionately known as Babe, the history of comedy--not to mention their personal and professional lives--is altered forever. Yet Laurel's simple screen persona masks a complex human being, one who endures rejection and intense loss; who struggles to build a character from the dying stages of vaudeville to the seedy and often volatile movie studios of Los Angeles in the early years of cinema; and who is haunted by the figure of another comic genius, the brilliant, driven, and cruel Charlie Chaplin.
Eventually, Laurel becomes one of the greatest screen comedians the world has ever known: a man who enjoys both adoration and humiliation; who loves, and is loved in turn; who betrays, and is betrayed; who never seeks to cause pain to anyone else, yet leaves a trail of affairs and broken marriages in his wake. But Laurel's life is ultimately defined by one relationship of such astonishing tenderness and devotion that only death could sever this profound connection: his love for Babe.
Author Notes
John Connolly is author of the Charlie Parker mysteries, The Book of Lost Things , the Samuel Johnson novels for young adults, and, with his partner, Jennifer Ridyard, is the coauthor of the Chronicles of the Invaders series. His debut, Every Dead Thing, swiftly launched him into the top rank of thriller writers, and all his subsequent novels have been Sunday Times bestsellers. He was the first non-American writer to win the US Shamus award, and the first Irish writer to be awarded the Edgar by the Mystery Writers of America.
Reviews (4)
Kirkus Review
The life and art of Stan Laurel, from vaudeville and silent movies to the talkies and old age, is explored in this artful novel.It's easy to see what doesn't quite work in this retelling of Laurel's life. Connolly (A Game of Ghosts, 2017, etc.) has made his name as a crime writer, and at times the blunt, spare, deliberately repetitive prose seems like a self-conscious attempt to be literary on the part of someone concerned about being snobbishly dismissed as a genre writer. At times, Connolly reaches for lyricism and finds only sentimentality. At times he employs a too-easy psychoanalyzing that reduces characters--and which stands out in a novel that insists on the complexity of humans and their motives. But the flaws are finally no match for the affection that the author feels for his subject, for the genuine melancholy that wells up as Laurel remembers his past from the comfort of the small apartment in Santa Monica where he spent his last years and for the intelligence and decency with which Connolly handles potentially salacious material. The Stan Laurel we know from the screen, that gentle, befuddled soul, was different from the man who made bad marriages and for many years sought refuge from the pain of those marriages in booze. The book is too smart to use that gap between public persona and private life to treat Laurel's art as if it were a lie. Almost all the characters here are based on real people, and even the genuine bastards are granted the status of full human beings. Oliver Hardy, known to all as Babe, is granted considerably more, and he comes across as a mountainous angel of a man. The book's great love story is that of Laurel mourning and yearning for his late partner, still writing routines for the two of them, rehearsing them by himself. It's the best tribute to this novel that by the end of it you feel you have been given the full texture of a life.This exploration of how art often diverges from the reality of the artist's life is not only moving, but also bracingly adult.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* The stars of the silent film era were among the most beloved celebrities of their time, including Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, and, of course, Charlie Chaplin, the diminutive giant in whose shadow the others lived. Connolly, author of the Charlie Parker mystery series, tells the story of Chaplin's one-time understudy, Arthur Stanley Jefferson, better known as Stan Laurel. While Chaplin emerged as the world's biggest star, Laurel met with moderate success in a string of two-reel comedies until he paired up with Oliver Babe Hardy, and they became the most successful comedic duo in Hollywood history. Connolly's tender double portrait is a love story about the astoundingly loyal friendship between these two quiet, immensely talented yet equally troubled men as they navigated the corrupt studio system, their failed marriages, the invasive press, and battles with their own demons. Connolly's love is evident in his impressive amount of research on and deep knowledge of his subject. The golden age of Hollywood is vividly and authentically drawn, with asides about the gossip, bed-hopping, drug use, untimely deaths, and subsequent obituaries that began with the phrase, Formally in Pictures. This dazzling and altogether wonderful book sets a new standard for the biographical historical novel.--Kelly, Bill Copyright 2018 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
THERE IS nothing surprising anymore about a sad clown. So many melancholy tales have been told about the tortured lives of comedians that the pertinent question about a new story is not whether the entertainer is miserable but why. In his deeply researched historical novel "He" - which recounts the tumultuous life and triumphant career of Stan Laurel, the slender half of the double act of Laurel and Hardy - the Irish mystery and thriller writer John Connolly proposes some options. There's the long shadow of Charlie Chaplin, whose monumental success and undeniable genius torment Laurel, and the usual exploitation by Hollywood producers like the titan of silent comedy, Hal Roach. Then there's the amoral, demanding "Audience," always capitalized and often ominous. "The Audience will laugh at a cat being burned," one characteristically cynical line begins. "The Audience will laugh because others are laughing." Written in spare, fractured prose from the perspective of a narrator who seems to be reporting from inside Laurel's mind, this odd and ambitious book is so dense with show-business detail that it may alienate nonfans. Even Laurel and Hardy lovers may be put off by its somber, experimental mood. Laurel, the British vaudévillian who successfully made the transition from the silent era to talking pictures, is the center of the story but his name is never mentioned. He is referred to only as "he," a self-conscious flourish in a narrative preoccupied with the disconnect between public and private lives. The novel begins with, and continually returns to, the end of Laurel's life. His mind is diminishing as he chases "butterfly memories," which announce the subjective perspective of what follows. His partner, the American performer Oliver Hardy, comes off much better, a good friend whose loyalty provides Laurel's one emotional anchor in a life of transitory relationships. Most of the book is a chronological history of Laurel's career, with an emphasis on his struggles to find a character for himself (whereas Hardy is presented as an actor with a gift for gags, Laurel is a gag man in search of a persona). It skips quickly from one career landmark to another, and describes the many women in his life whom he let down. But Connolly continually returns to the final days, when Laurel broods, despairs and expresses remorse for a life gone wrong. Connolly's staccato prose leans on short sentences and chapters (there are 203) that at their best evoke the style of Samuel Beckett, an admirer of Laurel and Hardy. The novel nicely brings Laurel down to earth, zeroing in on mundane concerns like salary, petty professional jealousies and challenges of the end of the silent era that you may not have considered, like the fact that film crews were suddenly told to be quiet on set. How were comics now supposed to know what was funny? While "He" keeps a close eye on the business and artistry of movies, what's actually on screen is often glossed over. There's a brief mention of the famous scene where Laurel and Hardy struggle to carry a piano up a flight of stairs, but you don't really leave the book understanding why these comedians are such towering figures of film history. Of course, this is a novel, not a critical study, and perhaps the biographical movie of Laurel and Hardy that comes out next year starring Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly will make up that ground. And yet one closes this book still unsure about who Stan Laurel really was, though this may be part of the point. Trav S.D., who wrote the excellent history "Chain of Fools," once described Laurel on screen as "completely vacant, like a beast of burden, like a black hole." Connolly takes us behind the scenes but the view isn't much different. Laurel remains a cipher, a comic type, a star without a name. JASON zinoman, the On Comedy columnist for The Times, is the author of "Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night."
Library Journal Review
The subject of this extraordinary novel is movie comic Stan Laurel (1890-1965). But he's never referred to by name. It's always "he," "his," or "him." The conceit should be off-putting but somehow isn't. It works, mirroring how Laurel sees himself: never at peace, only completed (and for the moment) when working with his partner "Babe," Oliver Hardy, the fat man to his skinny one in classic comedy skits that span the ages of silent films and talkies. Laurel is obsessed with Charlie Chaplin, always a step ahead of him in the comedy world. He realizes he can't match Chaplin but knows, too, that he's done good work. They'd performed together in early years. Why doesn't Chaplin even mention him in his memoirs? The novel cycles back and forth across the comic's long often harrowing career-drinking, womanizing, seven marriages to four women. He reminisces on his successes and failures but most of all on the loss of Babe, his mate, who completed a sad man who otherwise never felt whole. Verdict Connolly (Charlie Parker mysteries) makes his literary debut with this exceptional novel about a comic genius who never fully came to terms with his own worth. Who wouldn't want to read this lovely book?-David Keymer, Cleveland © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
