PositiveThe Arts Fuse... [a] zany, demanding satire ... It’s an estimable entry in [Aitkin\'s] varied literary career ... I do have several reservations about The Swells. I wish we knew more about Briony’s wishes, aspirations, goals along the way, and it kind of gets lost that she’s a journalist and supposedly on assignment on this trip. And the lovely use of language, of unusual, mellifluent words in the first part of the book...are mostly dropped later on. And, yes, the clever satire page after page does occasionally get bogged down a bit ... Still, what a fascinating, skillfully written book!
Glenn Frankel
PositiveThe Arts Fuse... a very good read ... The middle section of Frankel’s book is about the actual filming of Midnight Cowboy. It’s only fairly interesting. Nothing that momentous happened while the movie was being made ... It’s in the final section, post–Midnight Cowboy, where I finally felt Herlihy palpably on the page, when he became rich from owning part of the financially successful film at the same time that his writing talents were diminishing.
