Synopses & Reviews
From the author of
Henry and Clara, a dazzling, hilarious novel that captures the heart and soul of New York in the Jazz Age.
Bandbox is a hugely successful magazine, a glamorous monthly cocktail of 1920s obsessions from the stock market to radio to gangland murder. Edited by the bombastic Jehoshaphat “Joe” Harris, the magazine has a masthead that includes, among many others, a grisly, alliterative crime writer; a shy but murderously determined copyboy; and a burned-out vaudeville correspondent who’s lovesick for his loyal, dewy assistant.
As the novel opens, the defection of Harris’s most ambitious protégé has plunged Bandbox into a death struggle with a new competitor on the newsstand. But there’s more to come: a sabotaged fiction contest, the NYPD vice squad, a subscriber’s kidnapping, and a film-actress cover subject who makes the heroines of Fosse’s Chicago look like the girls next door. While Harris and his magazine careen from comic crisis to make-or-break calamity, the novel races from skyscraper to speakeasy, hops a luxury train to Hollywood, and crashes a buttoned-down dinner with Calvin Coolidge.
Thomas Mallon has given us a madcap and poi-gnant book that brilliantly portrays the gaudiest American decade of them all.
Review
"A new, gleeful exuberance infuses Mallon's latest novel....Mallon has never before employed his wit and humor to such good effect; he writes with comic brio, indulging in clever repartee and nimble farce." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Bandbox pulses with a comic energy and detail reminiscent of T.C. Boyle at his most entertainingly manic: it's a wonderful ride, and a quantum leap beyond Mallon's earlier fiction. Ragtime in double-time." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Given the variety of Thomas Mallon's previous books, it seems to me very unlikely we'll be hearing this jazzy voice from him again anytime soon. Let us relish it while we have it. Bandbox is delicious." Donald E. Westlake, The Washington Post Book World
Review
"Bandbox is slight but enjoyable, with enough sweet froth to put a mustache on the most finicky sipper. Readers who know little or nothing of the tempestuous teapot struggles in the New York magazine world will be gratified by the period detail as well as the pace." Sven Birkerts, The New York Times
Review
"[A] pleasure to read....Strongly plotted and laced with witty wordplay and covert social critique, this tale of ambition, betrayal, and love is pure joy." Donna Seaman, Booklist
Review
"[T]he novel, like its main character, never lets the energy flag....[A] real departure: antic, stylized, and up-tempo. The dialogue has a Kaufman-and-Hart crackle, and the story boasts more lotharios, floozies, mobsters, and wised-up dames than an M-G-M double feature." The New Yorker
Review
"The colorfully hectic scenes and wiseass talk make this novel...reminiscent of the snappy movie comedies of Preston Sturges or Ben Hecht....[A] quirky, stylish entertainment whose characters feast on the culture's surface at a time when there was much to feast on." Library Journal
Synopsis
From the author of "Henry and Clara" comes a dazzling, hilarious novel that captures the heart and soul of New York in the Jazz Age. Mallon pens a madcap and poignant book that brilliantly portrays the gaudiest American decade of them all.
About the Author
Thomas Mallon is the author of the novels
Henry and Clara,
Dewey Defeats Truman, and
Two Moons; In Fact, a collection of essays; and the nonfiction books Stolen Words, A Book of One’s Own, and Mrs. Paine’s Garage. A frequent contributor to The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, and other magazines, he lives in Washington, D.C.