But What is the Cat Thinking?

WHERE’S ANNIE? is not just the title of this 1963 novel by Eileen Bassing, it’s also the question I kept asking myself while reading it. Specifically: Where’s Annie, and why is she name-checked in title? Because this novel isn’t really about Annie at all.

Annie, the young trophy wife of a retired navy admiral, is but one of a group of American ex-patriots living in an un-named village in Mexico, and even then she is only a peripheral character, having only slightly more impact on the book’s story as the natives of the village.

The book’s actual main character is Victoria, a middle-aged writer who, after ditching husband No. 4, has settled in the village to write a great novel, provided she can get past her writer’s block. Victoria is not an easy character to love. We first meet her when she nearly collides with Andrew Cunningham, Annie’s unhappy husband, while he’s out for his morning walk. “Out of my way,” she says, as though he’s the one at fault. Victoria is too involved in her own thoughts to waste time with social graces.

Victoria is bitchy, but she’s not heartless. She later comes rushing to Cunningham’s aid when his fishing boat sinks in the lake at the edge of the village, then later she organizes a search for Annie when the admiral’s young bride disappears from a party (insert title drop here).

Annie is ultimately found in the arms of another (younger) man. Annie lamely defends herself, telling Victoria that Cunningham is “so…old.”  Victoria encourages Annie to remain faithful to her husband a little longer. “You have time,” Victoria says. “He has…almost no time.” (Bassing is fond of ellipses.)

The Cunninghams leave for the U.S. the next day and Victoria once again focuses on her work. But first, she walks to the post office to see if her agent has sent her a check, then she goes drinking with Charlie, a recovering morphine addict who fights off cravings with booze and pot, and Harry, a junkie who’ll take whatever drug is available. She later meets Ned, a homosexual and gifted artist. Though Ned is perfectly charming, Victoria, who couldn’t give less of a fuck about making a good first impression, is openly hostile. Still, Ned invites her to visit him. She refuses.

Days later she decides to apologize for her rudeness, visiting Ned on the exact same day he comes down with malaria. Victoria elects to stay with him and nurse him back to health, partly out of penance for her earlier treatment of him, but mostly to avoid her typewriter. It’s during this chapter that we get one of the book’s best lines, when Victoria tells Ned, “I’d rather deal with your excrement than your gratitude.”

The pair become friends, but it’s not a healthy friendship. Victoria had to deal with Ned’s literal shit when he was sick but dealing with his metaphorical crap may be worse. It turns out Ned’s charm masks his cold, selfish nature. The pair fight and make-up constantly. He finds her too dowdy, too bohemian, too emotional. She resents his criticisms of her and her writing, but when her temper cools she’s back at his door, seeking his approval. It’s Harry, of all people, who’s the voice of reason:

“[Do] you know what I see Neddy-boy doing? I see him trying to make my Vickie, my original, over into his own mold. He is fashioning, as though he were God, another little Neddy-boy.”

Harry is a drug addict and shit-stirrer, so Victoria dismisses his observations. Besides, she’s too preoccupied with what Ned’s cat is thinking to pay attention to what Harry says.

Let me explain: Late in the book Ned gives Victoria his cat, Hassan, to care for while he’s out of town. This cat behaves like most cats (lies there, mostly), much to the consternation of Victoria.

Could it think? She stared at it and the cat stared back at her, in cross-eyed indifference. After a moment — and she was aware that a lot of time passed this way, hypnotically, with her staring at the cat and the cat staring back at her — it reached out with its paw and pushed at an envelope which was on the shelf near it. The cat did not watch the envelope flutter to the floor, as she did. But wasn’t that proof, since it was a deliberate act, that the cat must have some thought, some reasoning process? Then what could its reasoning process be?

The above text is but a mere taste of Victoria’s obsessing over this cat. Bassing devotes almost three fucking pages to Victoria wondering what makes this goddamned cat tick. I only bothered with one of those pages.

And this tangent about the mysteries of cat thought highlights my biggest problem with Where’s Annie? For all the well-drawn characters and sharp observations, Bassing too often gets bogged down in minutiae at the expense of the story’s momentum. This is a loose, character-driven narrative, with as much attention given to the characters’ inner lives as to the story’s minimal action, but I would argue that any inner life that dwells on the inscrutability of cats is perhaps not a life not worth reading about.

Not helping is Bassing’s tendency to try too hard, her writing often self-consciously literary, as if she’s more interested in impressing critics than engaging readers, similar to how Victoria tailors her writing to please Ned rather than herself. Consequently, this book felt longer than its 382-pages.

But Where’s Annie? has a lot to recommend it. Victoria isn’t particularly likable, but she is relatable. I’ve known people like her—I’ve been friends with them—and as in real life, I was alternately drawn to Victoria for her acerbic wit and put off by her surly attitude. Still, even though I didn’t entirely like her, I didn’t think she deserved the treatment she got form Ned.

Speaking of Ned, while I wouldn’t nominate Bassing for a GLAAD award, her treatment of Ned’s homosexuality is pretty progressive for 1963. She matter-of-factly acknowledges Ned’s queerness (Ned has a boy toy, Manuel), but his homosexuality never becomes his sole character trait. In fact, there are only a couple instances in the book when characters make derogatory comments about Ned’s sexuality. People don’t dislike him because he’s gay, they dislike him because he’s an asshole. 

I didn’t know anything about Eileen Bassing when I was given this book five years ago (my nephew saw it at a used bookstore and thought it looked like something I’d read). Besides Where’s Annie?, she wrote the novel Home Before Dark. According to her obituary — she died in 1977 at age 58 — she also was a screenwriter (she adapted Home Before Dark into a 1958 movie starring Jean Simmons), a story editor and an advisor for the motion picture and TV industries. I’ve seen Home Before Dark and recommend checking it out next time it appears on the TCM schedule. Where’s Annie? is worth checking out, too. If you can fight the temptation to abandon the search early, Where’s Annie? is ultimately a satisfying read.

The Lurid and the Literary

“Out here books are crap,” explains a screenwriter character in Herbert Kastle’s 1968 novel THE MOVIE MAKER. In Hollywood, this character goes on, books are just “words to be boiled down to a plot skeleton and refleshed for the screen. No one reads novels for the movies. They read story, skimming along and noting interesting twists and turns. Bestsellers are bought for their titles more than anything else.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out Kastle got a similar talk when he was working as a screenwriter, one of several of his early writing jobs—including editor and copywriter— before he became a full-time novelist. I also think this statement could be modified to apply to trashy Hollywood novels: no one reads these type of books for the writing; they read them for the sleaze.

The Movie Maker delivers the sleaze, but it’s too well written to be labeled mere trash. In fact, it’s so well written I can imagine Kastle’s agent having to lecture him about the hard truths of writing trashy Hollywood novels.

“Goddammit, Kastle,” his agent would have groaned, “why do you do this to yourself? All we wanted was a look at the sordid goings on in the movie business. Lots of sex, drugs and characters that are fictionalized versions of real stars, you know the drill. I know you know it because you’ve got this Mona Dearn character in this thing—a definite stand-in for Marilyn Monroe, all neurotic and fragile and shit. And giving her some lesbian leanings was brilliant. Man, I was getting hard just thinking of the possibilities, imagining Marilyn-but-not-Marilyn going down on, I dunno, an Ann Margaret stand-in, or maybe a fictional Jayne Mansfield. That would’ve been hilarious!  Sounds hot, though, doesn't it? But no, that was too easy for you. You had to go into her loneliness and insecurity and how her feelings for the movie publicist, Terry Hanford, are never reciprocated. Then the stuff about her painting, how she’s afraid to show her paintings to anyone in case they don’t like them, kind of a metaphor of how she’s afraid to show people her true self. I mean, Jesus Christ, who’s going to get hard thinking of that?

“At least you redeemed yourself with the Lois Lane and Sugar Smart characters,” the agent would continue. “God, what a couple of bitches. That poor egghead writer, Charley Halpert, didn’t know what hit him when he opened his motel room door to those two. You almost feel sorry for the bastard until you remember that it’s his fault for saying yes to a three-way with two teenagers. Serves him right, thinking with the wrong head.

“But maybe you should’ve been thinking with that other head, Kastle, instead of giving us all this insight into Charley Halpert’s inner conflicts—cheating on a wife who doesn’t support his writing ambition, his wanting to prove himself in Hollywood to win her respect but thinking maybe they should just divorce, except he doesn’t want to risk never seeing his son again. Then you involve him with this Cheryl character, the fat secretary—okay, okay, Rubenesque, but as far as today’s readers are concerned a Mae West figure isn’t much better than an Orson Welles figure. If Jacqueline Susann had that character in one of her books, Cheryl would be rejected repeatedly, maybe sexually humiliated when she does get laid. Then she’d spend a good third of the book slimming down until the men who rejected her earlier are begging to take her to bed, and then she rejects them. But I guess imitating a proven moneymaker was too simple for you, wasn’t it Kastle? Cheryl not only has two men hot for her—Charley and that producer, Alan Devon—she’s got that alcoholic, paraplegic husband of hers who seems to only want to stay married to make her life miserable. So, now the reader’s conflicted, wanting to write off Cheryl as a slut but having to wrestle with her relatable emotions. It’s too… too gray.

“Speaking of gray—or just gay—there’s that whole subplot with the schlock horror director, Carl Baiglen, being blackmailed by that young policeman from Baiglen’s hometown in the Midwest. That was good, a clever way for the cop to leverage his way into the movie business, transform himself into Brad Madison. Making him a closet case was a nice touch, too. Who was the real-life inspiration? Hudson? An amalgamation? Fine, you don’t have to tell me. Anyway, the homosexual stuff adds a bit of spice to it, but then you have to humanize him. I mean, people might forgive Baiglen for maybe-accidentally-on-purpose killing his first wife, but expecting readers to sympathize with this homo blackmailer? Worse, have him carrying on with Baiglen’s gay son Andy, and then present a reasonable argument—from Andy’s mother, no less—why Baiglen should not kill Madison? Look, Kastle, times are changing, but expecting people to sympathize for a fag actor is just too much.”

Kastle’s agent would pause here to light a cigarette, because it was the 1960s and everyone smoked. “But here’s my biggest problem,” he’d say, exhaling a pale blue cloud. “It’s your two main characters, Nat Markal and Isa Yee. Nat Markal is the head of Avalon Pictures, right? You’ve got his look right—I pictured a younger Edward G. Robinson—and he’s got the right take-no-shit personality, what people expect from a studio chief. Yet, he’s been faithful to his wife all this time, that it’s a point of pride for him? Christ, if anything could make Harold Robbins laugh, that would. Do you know how many starlets Nat Markal would’ve fucked if he were a Robbins character? At least four, within the first fifty pages. Yes, I know Markal’s staunch fidelity to his wife makes his falling for Isa Yee that much more dramatic, but who cares? And Robbins wouldn’t have Markal risking it all to make this grand epic—what did you title it? The Eternal Joneses?—for the sake of his artistic legacy. No, in a Robbins novel Markal would only make that movie if he thought it would be a huge blockbuster that would make him even richer. Fucking and making money, Kastle. That’s Robbins’ formula for success, without any of these petty concerns for three-dimensional characters. Do you know how many copies of The Adventurers Simon & Schuster sold? I could buy a yacht with that kind of money.

“Isa Yee almost gets this lost ship back on course. The sexy starlet with a dark secret. Dark, get it? C’mon, I’m not being racist, it’s a joke. Seriously, though, I thought Isa was a spitfire, and I can already see her on the paperback cover, a naked Eurasian girl—your word—practically draped over a director’s chair. The way you described her in those early chapters, especially when she strips for Nat Markal in his office, is hot stuff. But you couldn’t just let her be a conniving bitch, and one who does anal, no less. No, you had to make her smart and conflicted, adding in this race stuff. Christ-a-mighty-damn, first gays then race relations. I get it’s the 1960s, the Civil Rights movement, etcetera, etcetera, but people don’t pick up books like this for cultural insight. They just want sex and scandal, with cliché characters that are clearly good or clearly bad. You’re killing me with all this nuance, Kastle.

“No, no, I don’t want you to re-write it,” the agent would sigh, waving his hands dismissively. “It is a good book. I just wanted you to understand you don’t have to work that hard in the future. They can play up the sex and scandal when they market this thing, maybe compare it to Valley of the Dolls and The Exhibitionist, because it does fit in with that market. I just hope we don’t get any backlash when people discover they’re having their viewpoints challenged, or that the people making movies aren’t presented as just shallow vessels motivated solely by sex and greed. Who knows, readers might find it refreshing. But I still think Harold Robbins is going to laugh his ass off when he reads this thing.”

But, seriously, The Movie Maker is well worth your time, blending the lurid with the literary.  I’ve enjoyed the works of Harold Robbins, Jacqueline Susann and Jackie Collins, but their books are the equivalent of devouring a box of Ho Hos. Kastle’s books are a fattening meal that sticks to the ribs. You can read reviews of his other books here and here, and check out another review of The Movie Maker here.

Simultaneously Timeless and of Its Time

America is sharply divided, one side fighting to change the status quo while the other will stop at nothing to maintain it. Amidst this unrest rise Machiavellian politicians, self-serving pundits and fear-mongering preachers. The country is a powder keg, a single tragic event the match that could light its gasoline-soaked fuse.

No, I’m not about to launch into a right/left-wing screed about our current political climate. This is a review of Burt Hirschfeld’s 1973 novel, THE MASTERS AFFAIR, a political potboiler that’s simultaneously timeless and of its time.

I’m a fairly recent convert to the works of Burt Hirschfeld. I recall his novel Return to Fire Island being prominently displayed on the bestsellers rack at my local K-mart in the 1980s, when I was in high school. Back then I wanted brand name trash, so I by-passed Hirschfeld in favor of Harold Robbins. It wasn’t until I read some reviews of his books on the Glorious Trash blog that I actually sought out any of his work, starting with his 1970 novel Fire Island. I was immediately won over, surprised by just how gifted a writer he was, with a prose style more comparable to Irwin Shaw than Harold Robbins. Though his work does fall under the dismissive label of popular fiction, I could detect the ambitions of a “serious novelist” in Hirschfeld’s writing. But the ambition to be a bestselling novelist was clearly more important (hey, we all gotta pay bills), so he wrote whatever sold. Fire Island was not only a success, but a template, Hirschfeld following it up with a series of soap opera tales set in glamorous locales (Aspen, Acapulco, Key West). He also wrote non-fiction (A State is Born: The Story of Israel, Stagestruck: Your Career in Theatre), TV and movie novelizations (Bonnie & Clyde, The Ewings of Dallas), and, under the name Hugh Barron, trashy tales of Hollywood (The Goddess Game, The Love Thing).

And sometimes he wrote novels of political intrigue, like The Masters Affair.

The book begins with the assassination of W.W. Masters, the head of the secretive Internal Investigation Agency, sort of like the C.I.A. for domestic affairs. Hunting for the shooter, separately and with separate agendas, are by-the-book I.I.A. agent Peter Malone and liberal activist Dan Hellman. For Malone, catching Masters’ killer is personal: Masters was his mentor in the agency, and he was Masters’ devoted acolyte. For Hellman, who aspires to be the next Ralph Nader, identifying Masters’ killer and, just as importantly, discovering his motive, is a career opportunity. Also, just think of all the sweet pussy he’ll get when the spotlight’s turned on him.

Though the Malone character has a stick so far up his ass he risks puncturing a bowel, I found his storyline more engaging. His investigation leads him to a fundamentalist zealot, Rev. Willie Joe Tate, training a militia to fight atheist liberals and Godless communists, and later to an armory in Texas he suspects of supplying Tate his weapons. Hellman’s investigation, on the other hand, gets mired in too much pretentious philosophizing and side trips, as when Hellman appears on a talk show to battle wits with other political journalists. This chapter wastes too much time on pundits smelling their own farts (15 pages worth) when its primary purpose is introducing Joanna Cook, a Gloria Steinem-esque character and the novel’s only significant female character. 

Of course, Joanna and Hellman end up in bed, because Hellman is just that irresistible to women. Here it should be noted that while the paperback cover depicts Hellman as looking like Warren Beatty, Hirschfeld’s description of him brought to mind a thirtysomething James Woods. It’s should also be noted that while his contemporaries on the best seller lists of the day wrote unapologetically of throbbing cocks and quivering cunts, Hirschfeld’s sex scenes are either described in florid abstractions or happen off-page and referenced after the fact. Below is this book’s most explicit sex scene, an earlier encounter between Hellman and one of his college groupies. Be sure to have your lotion and tissues ready:

She lowered her face between his legs, reached for his slack member with her lips.

Hot.

Some out-of-left field accusations regarding Masters’ sexuality, courtesy of Joanna, ultimately leads Hellman to suss out the assassin’s identity, and it’s here that the book really shows its age. Though published the same year the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses, The Masters Affair makes it clear it was written prior to this 1973 resolution. Broad generalizations are made about homosexuals, including a psychiatrist spewing some horseshit about gays being drawn to highly structured professions, such as the military and law enforcement, because they supply a “representation of a father figure,” and how conversion therapy can help gay men lead “reasonably adjusted” hetero lives. This is also where Hellman, the free-thinking liberal protagonist, is revealed to be a homophobe (another similarity to James Woods), coercing a closeted government employee to talk by threatening to out him. This makes perfect sense for a book set in the early ’70s, but it killed whatever goodwill I had toward the character of Hellman.

The ending of the book is a bit puzzling. Hirschfeld describes how the killer is about attempt another assassination, except for much of this final scene the killer is thinking about shooting Masters, making the chapter read like a flashback to the book’s opening. More than likely Hirschfeld was just conveying that the killer had gone batshit, unable to distinguish fantasy from reality, but I just found it confusing.

While I wouldn’t count it among my favorite Burt Hirschfeld novels, The Masters Affair is a fairly entertaining read, its take on the U.S. political climate of its time sadly just as relatable today. Hirschfeld’s take on homosexuality, however, is very much stuck in 1973.