A Way Of Life Like Any Other

(Paperback, Main)

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Description

In this coming-of-age novel, first published in 1977, Darcy O'Brien tells the story of Salty, the son of two former stars of the silver screen, growing up in Hollywood in the 1950s. As he witnesses his parents' descent from a world of luxury to divorce, drink, loss of fame and fortune, Salty's humanity rivals that of Salinger's Holden Caulfield. The story moves to the rapid rhythm of Hollywood and is made light-hearted by his keen sense of the ironic, his flamboyant companions and their outrageous exploits. In A Way of Life, Like Any Other, Darcy O'Brien has created, under a shimmering veneer of Hollywood, an enduring portrait of the American family and one boy's struggle to come to terms with it.

Reviews

"[A] little gem of a novela masterwork of Hollywood fiction."Salon

"A hysterically funny comingofage story set in Hollywood in the 40sa kind ofCatcher in the Ryefor theCheap Trickgeneration." GQ

"How is it that this minor comic masterpiece could ever have gone out of print Darcy OBriens 1977 noveltakes us into an alien culture, Hollywood in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and evokes that kitschy world with spectacularly deadpan humor." Michael Dirda,The Atlantic Monthly

"A hilarious addition to the fabulous Hollywood novel, this time laconic, understated, deadpan, ruthlessly cutting from scene to scene and character to character, and both witty and moving. I enjoyed it enormously, and recommend it unreservedly as a funny, serious, literate, and intelligent book."The Guardian

"It is the real thing.Its bound to go like a greyhound, fast and fine." Seamus Heaney

"This novels teenage hero, a kind of West Coast Holden Caulfield, tells of his surreal coming of age in Hollywood as the son of a former cowboy star and a faded actress. When their marriage breaks up, he bounces around town trying to find his bearings, with results both farcical and serious."Press-Telegram

"OBriens storytelling voice is at once eminently sensible and attuned to absurdity; he sees whats amusing in his world without rendering it as caricature.A Way of Life, Like Any Othertakes the same sane, amused attitude to the hyperbolic reality that is Hollywood. Like an infinitely slyer Margaret Mead, OBrien shows us the culture he grew up in, and living up to his title, helps us understand how this way of lifeislike any other sort of, anyway." John Powers,LAWeekly, BestL.A.Novel

"Spawned by a pair of movie stars from Hollywoods golden age, the unnamed boy narrator of this indirect and vinegary little book wonders:Was there ever so pampered an ass as mine"Kirkus Reviews

Author Bio

Darcy O'Brien (1939-1998) was an award-winning author and son of early film stars George O'Brien and Marguerite Churchill. His first novel, A Way of Life, Like Any Other won him the PEN/Hemingway Award in 1978. O'Brien went on to produce several bestsellers and two further award winning books: Murder in Little Egypt and Power to Hurt, both of which received the Edgar Allan Poe Award. His last work, The Hidden Pope (1998), received much acclaim before his death later that same year.