WWW.WEDNESDAY

WWW. WEDNESDAY asks three questions to prompt you to speak bookishly. To participate, and to see how other book lovers responded, click here. 

PS I no longer participate in WWW.WEDNESDAY via that link because her blog won't accept Blogger comments. I mention this only to save you the frustration I experienced trying to link up.

1. What are you currently reading? Twilight of Camelot: The Short Life and Long Legacy of Patrick Bouvier Kennedy by Steven Levingston. John F. Kennedy Jr. is having a moment, but most people don't know that, for two days, he had a baby brother. In August of 1963, Jacqueline Kennedy gave premature birth to a baby who died. It would have been the news story of the year, if her husband hadn't died in her lap just three months later.

 

This is a book I've been waiting for. For all that every moment of November 22-25, 1963, has been documented, the circumstances around Patrick's birth and death are harder to find. I can imagine how excited the nation must have been to have a pregnant First Lady. What was the press coverage like? How did we respond to the baby's death? On the personal side, how did JFK juggle the demands of the Presidency while watching his son fight for life, and then mourn him? I hope I'll get answers to these questions from Mr. Levingston. 

2. What did you recently finish reading? Kids, Wait Till You Hear This! by Liza Minnelli. Oy, this book! Much of it reads like science fiction. At one point, Liza is legally married to a gay man (Peter Allen) while engaged to a younger man (Desi Arnaz, Jr.) and then announces she's going to marry an older man (Peter Sellers). I know it happened. I remember the newspaper photo of Liza and Peter Sellers giving a press conference from a lawn somewhere. She goes on to cheat on her second husband and has a series of affairs (at least 3) with married men. I am not judging her morality. Far be it from me to do that. It's her wisdom. I don't know how she thought any of this would work out well. Her behavior would have been more comprehensible to me if, at some point, she took off on a flying saucer or chose to embark on a expedition to Middle Earth.

 

I wish I had more compassion for Liza. She had a genuinely horrific childhood with a mercurial, addicted, yet charismatic and loving mother. We've all heard about Judy Garland's demons, and living with her damaged Liza. While often clear-eyed about Mama, she insists on romanticizing her father. Director Vincente Minnelli never seems to be there for her when she needs him, even as she talks about her darling Papa in glowing terms. Example: Liza left home at 16 to go to New York and become a Broadway dancer. She was evicted from her residential hotel for non-payment of rent and ended up sleeping on a park bench for several nights. In Central Park! Then she began sofa surfing. She claims that if Papa had known any of this, he would have been beside himself. How did he not know? His 16-year-old daughter was on her own in NYC and he wasn't keeping constant tabs on her? Remember, this was before cell phones and Liza was without a phone number for weeks if not months. Later, when Garland dies and Liza finds herself in the center of a media circus at a young age, Papa refuses to come to New York for the funeral. He didn't want to be photographed with Judy's other ex-husbands. Fair enough, I suppose. But Liza recalls crying for a week straight while planning a high profile funeral and facing painful questions about Judy's drug use and possible suicide. Papa couldn't fly to New York but skip the funeral and hide out in her apartment, just to hold her hand? Frankly, he sounded like he didn't really give a shit about her. At least not until she became famous and burnished his legacy. I don't think it's an accident that in her two best movies, Sterile Cuckoo and Cabaret, she plays a girl who desperately insists she's her father's top priority, despite all evidence to the contrary.

 

Her denial about Papa. Her denial about her self-destructive behavior. She exasperated me. 

 

I respect her talent enormously. You can see her Emmy-winning special Liza with a Z for free on YouTube and it's a delight. I admire how she overcame addiction. I give her credit for revealing so much on these pages, warts and all. But she gave me a headache. 

 

I spent 900 pages with Streisand and found her far more relatable. Babs is a diva and a generational talent, but she's also a woman of bedrock sanity. She takes her faith seriously. She's grounded. Even at her most self-involved – and you have to be self-involved to write a 900-page book about yourself – I got her. I do not get Liza at all.

 

I still need to read Cher's memoir. I wonder if I'll find she's more Streisand or Minnelli.

 

3. What will you read next?  I don't know