{"id":6291,"date":"2017-01-02T08:43:26","date_gmt":"2017-01-02T13:43:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6291"},"modified":"2017-01-02T08:46:26","modified_gmt":"2017-01-02T13:46:26","slug":"what-remains-of-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6291","title":{"rendered":"****What Remains of Me"},"content":{"rendered":"
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photo: James Gubera, creative commons license<\/p><\/div>\n

By Alison Gaylin , narrated by Ann Marie Lee \u2013 If, as the Bible says, the sins of the fathers will be visited on their children (or more colorfully \u201cThe fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children\u2019s teeth are set on edge\u201d), this story is the proof of it. It\u2019s set in two time periods\u20141980 and 2010\u2014among a small group of Hollywood teenagers. They\u2019re about 17 in 1980 and nearing 50 in 2010, with a whole lot of water under the bridge in between.<\/p>\n

The three friends\u2014Kelly, Bellamy, and Vee\u2014come from vastly different backgrounds. Kelly, the principal point-of-view character, is barely middle class, while Bellamy and Vee are children of \u201ctinseltown royalty,\u201d rich kids whose actions bring few consequences. They all smoke, drink, use drugs, and skip school. Gaylin dwells on the substance abuse and resultant bad decision-making more than necessary, as there was not much new there. But even so, it\u2019s the parents whose problems run deepest, under the shiny surface.<\/p>\n

Teenage Kelly Michelle Lund\u2014as she is forever known in the media\u2014after ingesting more than a few illegal substances, goes to a movie wrap party at Vee\u2019s home. Before the party ends, his director-father is murdered\u2014shot three times, once right between the eyes. Thanks to a weak defense effort, Kelly is convicted of the crime.<\/p>\n

After a quarter-century in prison, Kelly has been out for five years and is trying to rebuild her life. When Bellamy\u2019s father is murdered in much the same way Vee\u2019s was, the media and the police immediately suspect Kelly. In Gaylin\u2019s twisting plot, every significant character has secrets, and they are ingeniously linked, While the plot mostly holds, a late confrontation between Kelly and Bellamy felt excessively contrived.<\/p>\n

Hollywood is the perfect backdrop for a story in which nothing is as it seems\u2014a place where you shouldn\u2019t peer behind the curtain or, perhaps, for your own good, you\u2019d better!. Throughout the story, characters repeatedly suggest that powerful Hollywood folk can do whatever they please, without consequences. That certainly was true when the studios\u2019 star system was in place and bad behavior was aggressively covered up, but it\u2019s less true since (with Bill Cosby a prominent exception). Yet that presumption makes so many characters\u2019 secrets easier to keep.<\/p>\n

Ann Marie Lee\u2019s narration nicely evokes both the teens and the parents. She might have used more mature voices for Kelly and Bellamy at age 47, but that\u2019s a minor quibble regarding an overall fine reading.
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