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More copies of this ISBNTell-Allby Chuck Palahniuk
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:The hyperactive love child of Page Six and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? caught in a tawdry love triangle with The Fan. Even Kitty Kelly will blush.
Soaked, nay, marinated in the world of vintage Hollywood, Tell-All is a Sunset Boulevard–inflected homage to Old Hollywood when Bette Davis and Joan Crawford ruled the roost; a veritable Tourette's syndrome of rat-tat-tat name-dropping, from the A-list to the Z-list; and a merciless send-up of Lillian Hellman's habit of butchering the truth that will have Mary McCarthy cheering from the beyond. Our Thelma Ritter–ish narrator is Hazie Coogan, who for decades has tended to the outsized needs of Katherine "Miss Kathie" Kenton — veteran of multiple marriages, career comebacks, and cosmetic surgeries. But danger arrives with gentleman caller Webster Carlton Westward III, who worms his way into Miss Kathie's heart (and boudoir). Hazie discovers that this bounder has already written a celebrity tell-all memoir foretelling Miss Kathie's death in a forthcoming Lillian Hellman–penned musical extravaganza; as the body count mounts, Hazie must execute a plan to save Katherine Kenton for her fans — and for posterity. Tell-All is funny, subversive, and fascinatingly clever. It's wild, it's wicked, it's bold-faced — it's vintage Chuck. Review:"Palahniuk's rude sendup of name-dropping and the culture of celebrity worship revolves around the fate of Katherine Kenton, a much-married star of stage, screen, and television, living in obscurity and searching for a comeback vehicle. Her story is told by Mazie Coogan — her Thelma Ritterish, straight-shooting confidant and protector — whose warning system sounds when Miss Kathie meets Webster Carlton Westward III, who quickly seduces his way into her Manhattan townhouse. It's soon revealed he's working on a memoir about his affair with Miss Kathie, the last chapter of which ends with her anticipated death, the details of which keep changing. The affair coincides with Miss Kathie's comeback in a bombastic Broadway extravaganza penned by Lillian Hellman (who receives inexplicably savage treatment). Throughout, Palahniuk drops names from the famous to the head-scratchingly obscure, peppers the narrative with neologisms supposedly coined by famous gossip columnists (ex-husbands are 'was-bands'), and annoyingly styles the text so that nearly every name, brand name, and fabulous venue appears in bold. Unfortunately, this gossipy fantasia is a one-joke premise that, even at its modest length, wears out its welcome well before Miss Kathie's final fade-out." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Review:"The novel is over the top in Palahniuk's patented style, made even richer by some athletic wordplay. Even the structure of the book — three acts with the action described — is weird yet completely appropriate to the theme." The Oregonian
Review:"Among the meta-fictional challenges the reader must confront within this narrative within a narrative within a narrative is what kind of book is Hazie writing (and we are reading). Meanwhile, the wordplay amuses." Kirkus Reviews
Review:"At his best, Palahniuk punctures our collective psyches with sharp darts of satire, subversion, and surprise....Palahniuk stages some stunning scenes and pens some bawdily hilarious lines." Booklist
Review:"Palahniuk still has considerable linguistic firepower and satirical humor, but here he puts it in service of a repetitive, predictable story, never fulfilling the promise of a great premise. Constant, bold-faced references to Tinseltown obscurities become annoying long before the end of a short book." Library Journal
Synopsis:The hyperactive love child of Page Six and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? caught in a tawdry love triangle with The Fan. Even Kitty Kelly will blush.
Soaked, nay, marinated in the world of vintage Hollywood, Tell-All is a Sunset Boulevard–inflected homage to Old Hollywood when Bette Davis and Joan Crawford ruled the roost; a veritable Tourette’s syndrome of rat-tat-tat name-dropping, from the A-list to the Z-list; and a merciless send-up of Lillian Hellman’s habit of butchering the truth that will have Mary McCarthy cheering from the beyond. Our Thelma Ritter–ish narrator is Hazie Coogan, who for decades has tended to the outsized needs of Katherine “Miss Kathie” Kenton—veteran of multiple marriages, career comebacks, and cosmetic surgeries. But danger arrives with gentleman caller Webster Carlton Westward III, who worms his way into Miss Kathie’s heart (and boudoir). Hazie discovers that this bounder has already written a celebrity tell-all memoir foretelling Miss Kathie’s death in a forthcoming Lillian Hellman–penned musical extravaganza; as the body count mounts, Hazie must execute a plan to save Katherine Kenton for her fans—and for posterity. Tell-All is funny, subversive, and fascinatingly clever. It’s wild, it’s wicked, it’s bold-faced—it’s vintage Chuck. VideoAbout the AuthorChuck Palahniuk's bestselling books are Pygmy, Snuff, Rant, Haunted, Lullaby, Fight Club, Diary, Survivor, Invisible Monsters, and Choke. He is also the author of a nonfiction profile of Portland, Fugitives and Refugees, published as part of the Crown Journeys series, and the nonfiction collection Stranger than Fiction. He lives in the Pacific Northwest.
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