Fabulous Fiction Firsts #576

Wed, 01/20/2016 - 6:40pm by muffy

One of February 2016 LibraryReads picks, Be Frank with Me * by Julia Claiborne Johnson, is one of the most enjoyable read I have come across for quite awhile.

M.M. (Mimi) Banning, whose first (and only) novel won her the Pulitzer as well as the a National Book Award at age 19, is desperately in need of a new book that would pull her out of financial ruin, having been the victim of Madoff-like investment adviser. Besides a substantial advance, she requires that her publisher send an assistant who "must drive, cook, tidy. Computer whiz. Good with kids. Quiet, discreet, sane, and no English majors or Ivy Leaguers", to manage her household and her 9 year old son, Frank.

That's how Alice Whitley ends up in the fortress-like Bel Air mansion. While Mimi is prickly and reclusive, it is Frank that wins Alice over, despite the disasters mother and son bring upon themselves. A walking encyclopedia of trivia facts and Hollywood lore, Frank dresses with the flare of a 1930s movie star and speaks with the confidence and wisdom beyond his years. Having no friend of his own age, Frank gradually opens up to Alice. When their sexy family friend Xander shows up, things decidedly take on an interesting turn.

"Johnson's magnificently poignant, funny, and wholly original debut goes beyond page-turner status...Her charming, flawed, quietly courageous characters, each wonderfully different, demand a second reading while we impatiently await the author's second work."

Readalikes: Marisa De los Santos' Love Walked In; Brooke Davis' Lost & Found, and Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt, all fabulous fiction firsts.

* = starred review