San Remo Drive: A Novel from Memory

Rating:
Summary: readers, writers, buy this book.
Review: A lovely, frightening, hopeful book. Moving and honest. Pansies reminding us of the tearful eyes of cocker spaniels. A cocker spaniel nearly eaten by a Police Dog. Sea foam like animal fat. Astounding images on every page. Humor. Courage.

Proving that there must be more to love than hate.

Rating:
Summary: novel memories
Review: Courageous recreation of 1950's boyhood in LA. At once hopeful and terrifying. Pansies the centers of which look like the teardrops of cockerspaniels. A cocker spaniel attacked by a police dog. Sea foam like animal fat. The McCarthy hearings as only a thinker of great humanity and comic breadth could portray. Full of heart. Readers, take note.

Rating:
Summary: Memories
Review: Epstein at his very best- a poignant memoir of his boyhood in the Hollywood of the '50's. It is the story of excruciating loss and the painful task of revisiting his past. Against the backdrop of Malibu, lemon groves, sunshine and his beloved home on San Remo Drive, he weaves the story of his own redemption through Richard Jacobi, the narrator.
I couldn't put the book down.

Rating:
Summary: a success.
Review: epstein does not shy away from the ugly, the raw, the core. with wit, eloquence, sensitivity, and a profound insightfulness unique to only a few writers, he has created a a masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: Life and times in old Hollywood
Review: Epstein has delivered a solid body of work over the years of his writing career. However, I didn't read San Remo Drive as part of his other work; rather, as a native Californian, I looked forward to revisiting those long ago days of clear blue skies, pristine coastline and miles of ripening orange groves.

This particular novel begins with the earliest years of the Jacobi family, after the father has died, when Lotte Jacobi does her best to keep her small family together. Mother and sons reminisce about family adventures, occasional fights and rubbing elbows with Hollywood icons. The two young brothers, Bartie and Richard, are certainly influenced by their parent's eccentric lifestyle and tendency toward dramatic confrontations. Richard, as an artist, interprets his unresolved issues on canvas, while Bartie writes movie scripts, boxes of them, forever trolling for a movie deal.

Lotte Jacobi proves a poor judge of character, especially when dealing with men. She makes some disastrous decisions that throw her family into hard times economically and emotionally. Still, emotions are Lotte's strong suit and her presence in both boy's lives is evident, as she directs their decisions and choices far into adulthood. They eventually lose their family home because of Lotte's inability to handle finances.

The second half of the novel is more cohesive and speaks to the strong influence of family on both sons. Richard Jacobi, now a successful artist, moves back into the family home with his wife, Marcia and two adopted American-Indian boys, hoping to recapture his fragile childhood memories. It would appear that he has married a woman much like his mother, raising his sons in the same dysfunctional atmosphere as his own childhood.

Richard has made his artistic reputation through a series of paintings of Madeline, a former next-door neighbor cum longtime lover and is preparing for a show of his work in Paris. However, he hasn't given enough thought to his wife's real jealousy of her supposed rival for Richard's affections, too willing to ignore the signs of trouble, much as the infamous Lotte modeled for him. Nor has his aging mother changed in any significant way, except perhaps that she is more tedious in her dotage. The characters may change, but the chaos endures.

Epstein painstakingly recounts the frenetic dialog, the hysteria and the arguments of generations of Jacobis. This family never gains emotional maturity, even as adults with young children. This novel has enjoyed rave reviews and The New York Times review calls it "one of the four best Hollywood novels ever written," with favorable comparison to Fitzgerald's Last Tycoon and Schulberg's What Makes Sammy Run. San Remo Drive appears to be an acquired taste and Epstein fans will not be disappointed. Luan Gaines/2003.

Rating:
Summary: masterpiece
Review: I just read San Remo Drive in one sitting. At the end of each chapter I couldn't keep myself from going on to the next. The story is so naturally told, and so intimate, you can't believe how it all comes together. This is the story of a family that keeps together through everything, holding fast, only breaking apart and disappearing to return anew, like memories. An astonishing work, and a literary marvel. San Remo Drive is a masterpiece. I want to read everything Epstein has written now.

Rating:
Summary: Buy the book. Read the book. Love the book.
Review: Leslie Epstein's novel of a childhood/adolescence in mid-century Hollywood as told by the novel's narrator, painter Richard Jacobi, is a mix of memory and fiction that illuminates expansive themes with excellent prose in a brave, sometimes controversial, always entertaining style that can be expected from a great writer who always seems to have a great story to tell.
The first half of the book is four tales that each focus on a life-changing event and are brought alive by the surrounding narration. In this section, the writing is direct and unapologetic, recounting instances both pleasurable and painful with a candor that at times borders on the dispassionate but nonetheless evokes a range of emotion: loneliness, irony, love, lust, betrayal-and at times caused me to laugh until I cried. Though comprised of separate instances going back and forth over different periods of time and involving very different circumstances, this first half strives for a level of wholeness and unity that, for the most part, is achieved.
The second half of the novel is set many years later and features Richard moving back to his old family house on San Remo Drive with his wife and adopted twin sons. From this point the novel flows much more smoothly, and the fact that it is one continuous story without chronology shifts doesn't hurt. For me, the highlight of the entire novel appears here, in the characterization of Richard's wife, Marcia. At the end of the day she is the most honest and true of all of them (and funny as hell, too). Her jealousy of Richard's ever-present muse, Madeline, and the events that unfold as a result are at once hilarious, shocking, and complex, and above all relevant to everyone who, as human nature often demands, gives too much of themselves to too many people.
I enjoyed the book immensely as a lovely tie-together of past, present and future, of homage to family and the effect it has on art (both fictional and real), and of identity, love and life through generations.