cover image Beautiful Wasps Having Sex

Beautiful Wasps Having Sex

Dori Carter. William Morrow & Company, $24 (336pp) ISBN 978-0-688-17464-4

This low-key Hollywood version of All About Eve (without the multiple points of view) portrays the rise to power of Jonathan Prince, as narrated by 39-year-old screenwriter Frankie Jordan. Riffing on Jewish Hollywood's WASP envy--WASPs as role models, WASPs as ideal on-screen characters, WASPs as an alien race--author and ex-screenwriter Carter pieces together an amusing, if occasionally wearing and sour, satire. Frankie (n e Francine Fingerman) first meets Jonathan in 1989; he's the new secretary for her agent, Freyda Wong. Separated from screenwriter husband and ur-WASP Hart, Frankie latches onto Jonathan, a 24-year-old social climber and aggressively secular Jew, as a friendly voice in an otherwise hostile world--or presumably because in Hollywood, any human connection (even a possibly faked one) is better than loneliness. Herschel, a struggling middle-aged screenwriter, and his bubbly wife, Miriam, are good friends in need, too, and they rent Frankie a small house in their backyard. When Frankie finally sells her screenplay--the 40-year chronicle of a woman named Ivy and her gay cousin Arthur--it seems things are looking up. The Jewish producers hire her to do a rewrite, mainly to tone down the Jewish ethnicity of the script, and Jonathan signs on as Frankie's secretary. Before Frankie's very eyes, however, Jonathan undergoes an unpleasant transformation, working, cajoling and maneuvering his way to power and status. The culmination of his efforts as a junior mover and shaker is a glossily tasteful Christmas (not Hanukkah) party he hosts at his apartment. Carter leaches her tale of suspense by having Frankie admit up front and in retrospect that she is only a minor story writer, but the details of day-to-day, dog-eat-dog life in lower-echelon Hollywood carry the tale. Still, when Frankie says about Jonathan, ""I wonder how I ever could have liked him,"" readers will likely agree. Major ad/promo, regional author appearances. (July)