Written by novelist (Stray Dogs), screenwriter (Three Kings) and TV producer (NBC's Third Watch) Ridley, who began his career as a stand-up comedian, this affecting and provocative roman à clef is set against the backdrop of 1950s–1960s Hollywood, Rat Pack Las Vegas and the Civil Rights movement. The fictional narrator is a mordant, world-weary Harlem-raised black comic, Jackie Mann, who irreverently recounts a journey from poverty to his symbol of success, an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, a path strewn with compromise and degradation. Mann's long-suffering mother dies when he is barely school-age, and he grows to young adulthood struggling to survive his alcoholic father's abuse while fulfilling his mother's prophecy: "You're a special one, Jackie Mann." Given an opportunity to do stand-up comedy late nights at the rundown 14th Street Theater, Jackie finally catches the eye of a smalltime agent. After escaping death at the hands of redneck bigots in Miami, a chance encounter with mob kingpin Frank Costello leads to Jackie's ensuing sponsorship by Sinatra. What follows are broken vows, blackmail, murder and bookings at flashy hotels where he is denied a room and must use the kitchen entrance. Ridley vividly brings to life noirish panoramas of high-stakes show business, as well as the myriad humiliations endured by a black man trying to win fame in segregated America. The novel is a veritable "who's who" of well-known showbiz personalities and includes fictional characters diabolically calculated to keep readers guessing their real-life counterparts.(June 6)
Forecast:A major publicity campaign (including a five-city author tour, a satellite tour to 25 markets and advertising in African-American publications and the
New York Times Book Review) and Ridley's Hollywood connections should ensure this novel makes a sizable splash.
