Helpful Score: 2
I got this book off a library sale rack. The summary on the inside dust jacket sounded promising. I am a lifelong Minnesotan but have heard of the the Dakota. The book started off fine but the more I read, the less I liked it. I was in sixth grade when the Beatles first became famous, so I remember all the hoopla surrounding them. Yet, the segments of this book that focused on John Lennon were not that interesting. I also came to dislike Anton, the main character. At the beginning of the book, he had been a Peace Corps volunteer and returned to the US to recover from some medical issues. Once back, he gradually began using drugs/alcohol and hopping into bed with various women. Yes, I know that some people did those things back during the time setting for this book but I was disappointed that this was the route Anton took. I also got tired of the liberal use of the "f" word in the book.
I picked this up from my to-be-read pile thinking it looked like a good candidate for a "palate cleanser" after something much heavier and more self-consciously literary. I was right, but before you think I've damned it with faint praise, let me continue so that I can make a case for why you might really like it.
Novelists choosing to set stories in a very specific time and place somewhere in the last several decades want to deploy ALL their research into the moment's zeitgeist. It can feel very effortful. I thought Barbash did well at making the copious pop culture more seamless than many authors manage (in this case the legendary Dakota Hotal in NYC in 1980).
Stories about celebrity families also seem to take delight in making their relationships and their interactions very lacerating. This was actually a novel in which the celebrities were kind to each other, their friends, and their public. This was a big point in its favor for me. I agree with the previous reviewer that in the last act of the book Anton's choices lost some of their refreshing, sterling quality. But for most of the way this book very much held my interest. I don't know whether the author nailed John and Yoko, but they weren't boring. Neither was the traversal of late-night TV.
Novelists choosing to set stories in a very specific time and place somewhere in the last several decades want to deploy ALL their research into the moment's zeitgeist. It can feel very effortful. I thought Barbash did well at making the copious pop culture more seamless than many authors manage (in this case the legendary Dakota Hotal in NYC in 1980).
Stories about celebrity families also seem to take delight in making their relationships and their interactions very lacerating. This was actually a novel in which the celebrities were kind to each other, their friends, and their public. This was a big point in its favor for me. I agree with the previous reviewer that in the last act of the book Anton's choices lost some of their refreshing, sterling quality. But for most of the way this book very much held my interest. I don't know whether the author nailed John and Yoko, but they weren't boring. Neither was the traversal of late-night TV.
