TELL-ALL
by Chuck Palahniuk
Doubleday Books
(May 2010, CAN $29.95, 179 pages)
Tell-All is the story of fifties Hollywood starlet Katherine Kenton, whose long life on the A-list has led her to an over-the-hill movie-star plateau. Miss Kathie's days are now spent downing booze and prescription drugs, and reminiscing about her past trophy marriages, literally engaged in to receive reputation enhancing awards. At night, she is either hosting or attending lavish dinner parties with the world's most famous people: "The attendant celebrities seem to stretch from Samuel Beckett to Gene Autry to Marjorie Main to the faraway horizon." Like any celebrity tell-all, Kenton's story surfaces by way of a fact finding insider, her lifelong maid, Hazie Coogan. Hazie is looking to steal the spotlight, and puts on an interesting show for the reader. Her reliability wavers early on with snarky comments explaining how she "lives in her [Miss Kathie's] shadow", setting up a hidden bitterness for her boss that ultimately never gets voiced aloud. Instead, Hazie projects that she is the mastermind behind Kenton's success. She picks the roles for her, and says she moulds her as "her body and my vision". With all of Hazie's self-conscious boasting, you still recognize her as a jealous nobody, living among higher class people, and indeed thriving for recognition.
It makes sense, than, when Hazie puts up a shield toward Miss Kathie's latest suitor, Webster Carlton Westward III, the actress' next cheekily dubbed "was-band", once the appropriate business necessitating a formal relationship is looked after. Webster presses hard for Kenton's affection and wins her over, the two are a couple of real love-birds, Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. But Hazie discovers what Webster really wants when she stumbles over a book he is working on. Entitled "Love Slave", the piece is a celebrity tell-all of his time spent with Kenton, but, to Kenton's protestations, is highly fictional. This "lie-ography", as Hazie calls it, depicts a steamy relationship between Kenton and Webb with a fatal twist. The final chapter of Love Slave depicts the scene of Kenton's death, with Webster present and desperately trying to save his lover. Amidst Miss Kathie's latest project, a World War Two production written and directed by Lillian Hellman (whose own career hit rocks in the fifties when she was linked to the communist party), it becomes Hazie and Kenton's task to dodge Webster's predicted death scenes, forcing him to rewrite his fatal chapter over and over again. Tell-All's last chapter gives you the final piece of the puzzle that, in true Palahniuk fashion, nobody sees coming.
Tell-All is a mystery novel, but uncharacteristically. In fact, I'm not sure a book has ever been written like this before. Hazie's narration is largely a set of director's notes, taking you behind an invisible camera and effectively giving Tell-All a lively cinematic feel. This technique lends to the Hollywood theme, of course, but also pulls you in as a reader. "The next sequence depicts a montage of flowers" opens Act One, Scene Six (yes, the chapters are in play-form), to give you an example of the style. It is like Palahniuk plunks you in the director's seat for the making of Tell-All the movie - there is never discrepancy over what image he tries to create.
Also experimentally, Palahniuk peppers the novel with words in bold text to highlight his characters' "name-dropping Tourrette's syndrome". Virtually every World War Two era movie star has worked with Kenton on a previous film, and she has played all the biggest roles, including Marie Antoinette, Mrs. Louis XIV, and the list goes on. On page one you are a bit floored by the constant type-set changes, but by the end of Tell-All the unconventional bold faced name-dropping is so extensive, its satirical qualities of what an actual A-lister's vocabulary would be like is hilarious.
Set away in a romantic, pre-Internet Hollywood hills landscape, Tell-All's often ludicrous depictions of fast-lane celebrity life sheds a satirical light on today's paparazzi fuelled media. From Miss Kathie's selfish need to adopt a child but not care for it, her anti-depressant addiction, and the name-dropping, this look into a fictional star's life is a mirror image of real/fake stars today. Palahniuk drives this angle home with allusions to Dorian Gray and a Wilde-esque use of a mirror which Hazie etches with Miss Kathie's tears, while the woman's true emotional self stays hidden. Likewise, Webster's self-projection transforms into a ravenous dog-like image as his murder plans continue to fail, and you really understand how this animal business works. Hazie's delusional account of the events in Tell-All are the biggest play on how the line between fiction and reality gets blurred in the tabloids' perspective.
by Chuck Palahniuk
Doubleday Books
(May 2010, CAN $29.95, 179 pages)
Tell-All is the story of fifties Hollywood starlet Katherine Kenton, whose long life on the A-list has led her to an over-the-hill movie-star plateau. Miss Kathie's days are now spent downing booze and prescription drugs, and reminiscing about her past trophy marriages, literally engaged in to receive reputation enhancing awards. At night, she is either hosting or attending lavish dinner parties with the world's most famous people: "The attendant celebrities seem to stretch from Samuel Beckett to Gene Autry to Marjorie Main to the faraway horizon." Like any celebrity tell-all, Kenton's story surfaces by way of a fact finding insider, her lifelong maid, Hazie Coogan. Hazie is looking to steal the spotlight, and puts on an interesting show for the reader. Her reliability wavers early on with snarky comments explaining how she "lives in her [Miss Kathie's] shadow", setting up a hidden bitterness for her boss that ultimately never gets voiced aloud. Instead, Hazie projects that she is the mastermind behind Kenton's success. She picks the roles for her, and says she moulds her as "her body and my vision". With all of Hazie's self-conscious boasting, you still recognize her as a jealous nobody, living among higher class people, and indeed thriving for recognition.
It makes sense, than, when Hazie puts up a shield toward Miss Kathie's latest suitor, Webster Carlton Westward III, the actress' next cheekily dubbed "was-band", once the appropriate business necessitating a formal relationship is looked after. Webster presses hard for Kenton's affection and wins her over, the two are a couple of real love-birds, Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. But Hazie discovers what Webster really wants when she stumbles over a book he is working on. Entitled "Love Slave", the piece is a celebrity tell-all of his time spent with Kenton, but, to Kenton's protestations, is highly fictional. This "lie-ography", as Hazie calls it, depicts a steamy relationship between Kenton and Webb with a fatal twist. The final chapter of Love Slave depicts the scene of Kenton's death, with Webster present and desperately trying to save his lover. Amidst Miss Kathie's latest project, a World War Two production written and directed by Lillian Hellman (whose own career hit rocks in the fifties when she was linked to the communist party), it becomes Hazie and Kenton's task to dodge Webster's predicted death scenes, forcing him to rewrite his fatal chapter over and over again. Tell-All's last chapter gives you the final piece of the puzzle that, in true Palahniuk fashion, nobody sees coming.
Tell-All is a mystery novel, but uncharacteristically. In fact, I'm not sure a book has ever been written like this before. Hazie's narration is largely a set of director's notes, taking you behind an invisible camera and effectively giving Tell-All a lively cinematic feel. This technique lends to the Hollywood theme, of course, but also pulls you in as a reader. "The next sequence depicts a montage of flowers" opens Act One, Scene Six (yes, the chapters are in play-form), to give you an example of the style. It is like Palahniuk plunks you in the director's seat for the making of Tell-All the movie - there is never discrepancy over what image he tries to create.
Also experimentally, Palahniuk peppers the novel with words in bold text to highlight his characters' "name-dropping Tourrette's syndrome". Virtually every World War Two era movie star has worked with Kenton on a previous film, and she has played all the biggest roles, including Marie Antoinette, Mrs. Louis XIV, and the list goes on. On page one you are a bit floored by the constant type-set changes, but by the end of Tell-All the unconventional bold faced name-dropping is so extensive, its satirical qualities of what an actual A-lister's vocabulary would be like is hilarious.
Set away in a romantic, pre-Internet Hollywood hills landscape, Tell-All's often ludicrous depictions of fast-lane celebrity life sheds a satirical light on today's paparazzi fuelled media. From Miss Kathie's selfish need to adopt a child but not care for it, her anti-depressant addiction, and the name-dropping, this look into a fictional star's life is a mirror image of real/fake stars today. Palahniuk drives this angle home with allusions to Dorian Gray and a Wilde-esque use of a mirror which Hazie etches with Miss Kathie's tears, while the woman's true emotional self stays hidden. Likewise, Webster's self-projection transforms into a ravenous dog-like image as his murder plans continue to fail, and you really understand how this animal business works. Hazie's delusional account of the events in Tell-All are the biggest play on how the line between fiction and reality gets blurred in the tabloids' perspective.
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