Buy it if: Your tastes veer towards The Economist, Wall Street Journal and Vanity Fair
Don’t Buy it if: You’re more apt to enjoy People, Us Weekly and USA Today
Moving between genres is not an ability gifted to all artists. For every Springsteen, juxtaposing stadium anthems with coffeehouse ballads, there’s a Jewel, abandoning much-loved fem-folk for poorly received dance tracks. (In fairness, I really liked 0304, but I may be the only one…) Having been enamored with non-fictional The Perfect Scent, I waded into Chandler Burr’s first novel with a bit of reserve. ‘Apprehensive optimism’ seemed the wisest approach to You or Someone Like You.
Overtly, the book weaves a trio of narratives through a pseudo-realistic Hollywood backdrop. (Real people populate the story, but their words and actions are a fabrication of the author. For readers of Variety, this may prove a touch disconcerting.)
The surface storylines of professional success, gay self-realization and religious awakening are all articulated by a single narrator, the only character whose dialogue remains oddly unpunctuated as such. (To be honest, I can’t decide if this is a plus or minus, but it doesn’t hurt the story either way.) And while I certainly can’t comment on the accuracy of a gay, American man writing in first person as a straight, English woman, I can say it certainly feels real…
If the above were the totality of the book, it would be decent, and relatively easy to classify. It would be of a ‘type’ of fiction that is popular enough, if not the sort of thing I’d usually seek out. But there’s a catch. A stealth literary nerdiness permeates the writing. Obvious emotional description is eschewed or hidden within citations from authors like W.H. Auden or William Blake. The Hollywood book club that serves as the story’s biggest catalyst is also a sly invite to explore classic literature yourself, a crafty wink and nudge reminding you there’s more to those dusty volumes than you might have gleaned from your sophomore lit class… Double points to Burr for actually interesting me in Edith Wharton.
Of course, some may take umbrage with the free use of Hollywood’s power figures, but they serve the book well as props in a dissection of an LA dynamic that Burr really nails. The arc of fame, from obscurity to necessity to exclusivity to abandoned notoriety is remarkably in tune with the lifespan of west coast fads. (Though I wouldn’t go around quoting J.J. Abrams’ take on Bronte, it was the dude’s doppleganger, people.) It’s easy to point a reader towards the religious and romantic themes, but the grasping of Hollywood culture is the book’s unique gem. Entourage explained through Yeats. I know how that sounds, but it works.
Its very likely some readers won’t stick with the story beginning to end. It’s a quality read, but the density requires a little extra mental digestion. (It’s the rich cheesecake to Candace Bushnell’s spun sugar and whipped cream.) I do believe those who come through to the end deserve a little more credit than the explain-everything-you-might-
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