Footnotes: A Memoir

In this chatty memoir about a Texas boy who made it to the Great White Way, Broadway star and tap dancer Tune--that's his real name--is anything but pretentious. ""I never had a grandfather,"" he writes in a first paragraph that sets the tone for the rest of the book. ""One was crushed in a coal mine collapse when Mom was four, and the other, after `another hopeless day on the farm,' killed all his hired hands, shot Grandma, and then himself."" Tune often jumps from one idea to the next, skipping years and dancing from topic to topic. More disruptively, he sometimes interrupts the story to ask the reader faux-intimate little questions. After noting, for instance, that the three Tune siblings are exactly ten years apart, he writes, ""I wonder if my parents did it only once every decade. Not possible, my parents never did it at all! Did yours? I don't think so."" Although mostly fluff, the book does show Tune's more serious side, such as his understandable concern about the slow demise of Broadway. Tune's many admirers will delight in this tale, and other readers will find it a lighthearted, innocuously wicked story about life in the footlights. First serial to Dance Magazine. (Nov.) FYI: In a playful nod to Tune's well-known height (he's 6'6""), S&S is releasing Footnotes in a 51/4"" 91/4"" format.