Rating: 3 stars
Genre: historical fiction
Review:This book is being marketed as a romance, a love story. I say, really? There are elements of that in it, to be sure, but in some ways this book is quite the opposite. The story is two-fold. One part is a part-fictional, small-part memoir of the author's grandfather, who may or may not have had an affair with Lucille Ball. They met at a party in New York, before she was nearly as famous as she would later become. He was established in his real estate career, married, with children. She too was already married, and focused on making herself (and Desi) a rising star in the acting world. But they caught each other's attention and a slight obsession followed. The book jumps through the years, following both, and interspersed with the author's own story of talking to his dying grandfather (the one who, as a younger man, is a character in the larger story - don't worry, it's not as confusing as it sounds).
Do Lucille and the author's grandfather ever get together? Well, such is the stuff that stories are made of. Did any of this really happen? That's a more complicated question. What is the responsibility of the author of historical fiction to historical fact? Strauss is completely clear that he doesn't know the truth of the matter, but he also acknowledges fudging such fundamental facts as the day of the week on which I Love Lucy aired. And why? That particular detail is absolutely not relevant to the plot, so why bother to change a fact of history. To me, that calls the entire enterprise of this book into doubt. Maybe he did that on purpose, since he himself doesn't know the truth of the possible relationship between his grandfather and Lucille Ball.
Setting the absolute truth aside, this is a very readable story. It follows Lucille Ball through her early struggles with Desi and her career, into her stardom, and through the collapse of her marriage, even as she continues to grow more powerful in Hollywood. It follows Isidore Strauss, mostly through a family lens, as his children grow and his wife becomes an alcoholic. Either of these stories separately might have made good reading. Tying them together is something of a conceit on the author's part, and it doesn't quite work.
FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.
