Such reverie is more intoxicating than a tall glass of Vitameatavegamin ... if you want a biography of the comedian, look elsewhere ... So much of what The Queen of Tuesday describes hews to the general outlines of our cultural memory that it’s easy to elide Strauss’s creative license, but the alterations start right on the title page: I Love Lucy ran on Mondays — not Tuesdays ... if you give yourself over to his premise, The Queen of Tuesday is a striking exploration of how fame confounds the lives of prominent and obscure people ... Strauss conjures up those heady days of I Love Lucy with such vibrancy that it’s impossible not to hope that everything might work out after all ... what makes The Queen of Tuesday so peculiar and fascinating is the story that Strauss weaves through it about his grandfather, Izzy ... impossibly daring ... tragic and poignant.
... in this buoyant fictional biography [Strauss] has provided a welcome reminder that Ball was far more than an adept comic famous for pulling faces and surreal physical stunts ... energetically quirky and entertaining ... sensitive writing ... He bores deeply and with present-tense energy into the minds and spirits of both characters ... Strauss also manages to widen his lens to a full-blown portrait of the country’s mid-century mores and prejudices ... an impressive mixture of fact and guesswork and pure imagination ... against all odds deeply satisfying.
...ingenious and bittersweet ... To better stress her relevance, Strauss finds a way to work in a Trump ... Darin takes a while to insinuate himself into the story, which makes The Queen of Tuesday feel somewhat off-kilter. Rather than a historical novel leavened and complicated by the novelist’s presence, the book often feels divided into segregated lumps of 'auto' and 'fiction' ... But even someone who grasps what Strauss is doing and likes it might wonder whether a novel about a comedian should be funnier ... Strauss finds his footing toward the end, balancing Isidore‘s and Lucille’s real lives and the romance he’s dreamed for them.
As in Strauss’s other books, the movement here is perpetual and multidirectional; it never stops, and it’s never driving exactly where you think it’s going. A close comparison would be to certain American filmmakers like Altman, Cassavetes, or the Safdies—always churning, developing ... Strauss takes his time ... the truth-telling is devastating ... The book could be conceived as a series of frames of reference that move around, sometimes containing each other and sometimes not ... One of the (many) painful lessons the book teaches is that we can’t ask questions...of human relationships because there are no answers that are comfortable for everyone. The book’s setting provides a broader frame of reference than either of the two marriages; we shuttle between Isidore’s world, the dawning suburban microcommunity in Long Island; the Desilu Ranch in California, where Ball and Arnaz fake happiness; and the various studios where Lucille thrusts and parries with suitor colleagues/male oppressors. Somehow we get a very clear sense of these places, down to their smell, with fairly spare description ... The author asserts himself, here as elsewhere in his books, through his rigorously playful approach to language ... as a document of history, both family and otherwise, it reads like a dream painted in bold and fearsome strokes.
...richly imagined ... the narrative, inflected with aspects of Strauss's own family history, is canny, and the writing, while at times overcooked, is neverendingly fresh. The Queen of Tuesday is a capsule of postwar American optimism.
Screen reader support enabled.
...richly imagined ... the narrative, inflected with aspects of Strauss's own family history, is canny, and the writing, while at times overcooked, is neverendingly fresh. The Queen of Tuesday is a capsule of postwar American optimism.
The premise of Strauss’s newest literary novel is grandiose and rather wacky ... The tale succeeds in entertaining, and Lucille steals the show, of course. Most moving are the scenes where she finds her comedic niche via the character of Lucy Ricardo ... Strauss also offers insight into celebrity culture ... It’s best for people who value emotional over historical truth, but all the same, it should spur interest in Lucille Ball and her accomplishments.
After introducing a scene, the plot then jumps back in time to follow the lead-up to that scene. While readers may be distracted by the commitment to nonchronological storytelling, this intimate portrait of two marriages is a clever and personal novel from an acclaimed writer.
This dreamy novel, written as a fictionalized account of Darin Strauss peeling backing the layers of his family history, also asks the reader to reconsider their view of Lucille Ball ... Reading The Queen of Tuesday is like sorting through a long-dead relative’s scrapbook and old letters in an attempt to figure out who they really are. The naughty nature of Izzy and Lucille’s hush-hush romance buoys the book ... Strauss isn’t shy to lay it on thick, adding morsels of lush prose with a purple tinge ... This type of prose feels appropriate to the time and place Strauss is exploring, because it is magical—America is being reborn on both coasts simultaneously ... At times, the book’s non-linear nature books frustrates ... The Queen of Tuesday will change how you see Lucille Ball (you’ll catch yourself blushing the next time to see her on reruns). Strauss almost sets himself up for failure by tying his own knotted family history into Lucille and Dezi’s world—how can he make you care about a yearning Long Island suburbanite as much as television’s first powerhouse couple? And yet he does.
If you liked the Netflix miniseries Hollywood, the story of would-be stars and starlets who are willing to do anything for fame and celebrity, you will enjoy this story of Lucy’s rise from struggling B-movie star to studio head ... Told with reverence for Lucy and much admiration for the author's grandfather, The Queen of Tuesday is comprised of multiple love stories.
The book is so clearly a labor of love that would be almost churlish to point out how labored it can feel, as when the narrator muses for two pages about Desi Arnaz’s use and abuse of power, or when Isidore wallows in guilt for just one kiss. Strauss is at his best when harnessing Lucy’s vital comedic and sexual force ... Still, the questions of how family legends both obscure and reveal the truth will keep readers turning the pages.
Mingling fictional characters with famous historical ones worked to brilliant effect in E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime and many similar novels since, but this feels more like a thought experiment than a compelling story ... This odd book stands to anger Lucille Ball’s fans and bemuse Darin Strauss’.
