My Lush Life

Rating:
Summary: Not even a Little Me
Review: After finishing the 325 odd pages of Douglas McEwan's groaner of a book, he asserts that this was "the best writing of my life"

Live longer, babe.

There's a lot of mention in reviews of this book (and in the afterword) of it's similarities to Patrick Denis' "Little Me". This ham-handed, ulimately tedious mock-bio of self-centered boozy nympho Tallulah Morehead bears a resemblance to Dennis' hilarious mock-bio of self-centered boozy nympho Belle Poitrine only in the heroines self centeredness, booziness, and...well, do the math. While McEwan relies on cheesy, borsht-belt jokes that are repeated, and repeated, and repeated, Dennis relied upon the conceit that his mock bio was a dead on parody of the autobiographies of practically every star from the golden era. Not to say that I didn't get a few chuckles out of "My Lush Life", but they were few and far between. I mostly rolled my eyes and groaned. Since you can get "Little Me" in a reprint now, if you are in the market for a mock-bio about an immoral, talentless booze-bag who stumbles into stardom, well, "Little Me"'s the Filet, and "My Lush Life" is the Happy Meal.

Rating:
Summary: Not even a Little Me
Review: After finishing the 325 odd pages of Douglas McEwan's groaner of a book, he asserts that this was "the best writing of my life"

Live longer, babe.

There's a lot of mention in reviews of this book (and in the afterword) of it's similarities to Patrick Denis' "Little Me". This ham-handed, ulimately tedious mock-bio of self-centered boozy nympho Tallulah Morehead bears a resemblance to Dennis' hilarious mock-bio of self-centered boozy nympho Belle Poitrine only in the heroines self centeredness, booziness, and...well, do the math. While McEwan relies on cheesy, borsht-belt jokes that are repeated, and repeated, and repeated, Dennis relied upon the conceit that his mock bio was a dead on parody of the autobiographies of practically every star from the golden era. Not to say that I didn't get a few chuckles out of "My Lush Life", but they were few and far between. I mostly rolled my eyes and groaned. Since you can get "Little Me" in a reprint now, if you are in the market for a mock-bio about an immoral, talentless booze-bag who stumbles into stardom, well, "Little Me"'s the Filet, and "My Lush Life" is the Happy Meal.

Rating:
Summary: "My Lush Life"
Review: I can appreciate how "My Lush Life" by Douglas McEwan may frequently, if not almost always, be under-appreciated, undervalued, even trivialized and minimized.
The book, however, is brilliant. McEwan reminds me of Barry Humphries...but a Barry Humphries who has not yet caught on to his audience. McEwan's points are perhaps if anything more subtle than those presented by Dame Edna. Both like and unlike Dame Edna, McEwan exposes hypocrisy and prejudice with a wit and humor and intelligence that does not stop. To view his work as tailored for the gay population, which I suspect it almost always is, misses the point of this extraordinary writer entirely. He is addressing issues that deeply touch us all - alcoholism, depression, denial, superficiality, bias, abuse - and he does this in as creative a way as I have seen. I am most impressed with this first novel and sincerely hope that McEwan succeeds in finding a wide audience to benefit from what he has to contribute. I'm eagerly awaiting his next novel.

Rating:
Summary: "My Lush Life"
Review: I can appreciate how "My Lush Life" by Douglas McEwan may frequently, if not almost always, be under-appreciated, undervalued, even trivialized and minimized.
The book, however, is brilliant. McEwan reminds me of Barry Humphries...but a Barry Humphries who has not yet caught on to his audience. McEwan's points are perhaps if anything more subtle than those presented by Dame Edna. Both like and unlike Dame Edna, McEwan exposes hypocrisy and prejudice with a wit and humor and intelligence that does not stop. To view his work as tailored for the gay population, which I suspect it almost always is, misses the point of this extraordinary writer entirely. He is addressing issues that deeply touch us all - alcoholism, depression, denial, superficiality, bias, abuse - and he does this in as creative a way as I have seen. I am most impressed with this first novel and sincerely hope that McEwan succeeds in finding a wide audience to benefit from what he has to contribute. I'm eagerly awaiting his next novel.

Rating:
Summary: Praise For MY LUSH LIFE (From "Coaster-To-Coaster")
Review: In his novel novel, MY LUSH LIFE, author Douglas MacEwan delivers his wit straight-up with a humor chaser. After his tie-loosening preface created to fend off dreary, would-be litigators, Mr. MacEwan promptly whisks us away to the improbable, but hysterical world of Tallulah Morehead (all 47,000 puns in the book are mercilessly intended),whose career, legend and antics spans the 20th century astride two swizzle sticks in this laugh-out-loud bio-"agog"-graphy.

In this book, though, everybody works. No innocent by-reading allowed. Bring to the table your own knowledge of movies, gossip and history before parting these pages. You'll need it. The pace is fast, the jokes are frequent and, after reading the first few footnotes, your brow will furrow with disappointment when you see a page which DOESN'T have one.

MY LUSH LIFE is a vacation on paper....a cocktail napkin, to be specific. Once I started, there was no turning back and certain pages, due to their density of enjoyment from line-to-line, I read 2-3 times. All I can say is that if you don't "get it", don't get it but, to the other 4 billion or so of us who do, do.

Rating:
Summary: Brings New Meaning to Tedium!
Review: NO STARS! The only reason the rating shows one star is because I was not given the option for none.

After finishing "My Lush Life," I now understand the fervor that sometimes induces people to burn books -- or ban them. Mr. McEwan admittedly hopes his book will be derivative and reminiscent of the great camp classics of Patrick Dennis; but 'though the premise had promise, Mr. McEwan did not deliver.

I rue Mr. McEwan's lack of originality. But the worst offense is what seems at first to be mildly humerous quickly becomes flat and, ultimately, not funny -- and mean. It was a chore to finish the book.

The dust jacket graphics are wonderful. Buy the jacket and skip the book.

Rating:
Summary: Disapointing at best.
Review: What starts out as fresh and witty soon becomes tedious. There is no doubt that McEwan posses a wicked sense of humor. However instead of capitalizing on it the reader is "treated" to the same joke over and over and over.

Is it funny? Yes. Is it worth reading? Probably not. Which is unfortunate cause the book has a tremendous amount of promise.

Rating:
Summary: Disapointing at best.
Review: What starts out as fresh and witty soon becomes tedious. There is no doubt that McEwan posses a wicked sense of humor. However instead of capitalizing on it the reader is "treated" to the same joke over and over and over.

Is it funny? Yes. Is it worth reading? Probably not. Which is unfortunate cause the book has a tremendous amount of promise.