Garson does a great job showing off Tracy and Hepburn in this delightful book. You get to take a look inside Kate's life from a good friend of hers. Garson passed away in March of this year and he left many wonderful things behind. This book just being one. He also wrote several of the screenplays that Tracy and Hepburn stared in. This book is a must for all.

Beginning in the spring of 1927, "A Thousand Summers" follows Freeman Osborn, a thirty-something-year-old married pharmacist living in Edgartown, Massachusetts. It's here, on the island of Martha's Vineyard, that Freeman falls in love with Sheila Hanrahan-Van Anda, a married woman who visits him one day with an injured eye. Right away it's love at first sight, so to speak, when Freeman, in a desperate attempt to remove the object, does so by licking her eyeball--which is either an erotic or disgusting gesture, depending on the reader.

From that first meeting, Freeman and Sheila have an affair that spans approximately 25 years and takes place all over the globe--from Martha's Vineyard to Paris, London, and Japan. About two-thirds of "A Thousand Summers" is a love story; the remaining third is mainly the aftermath of their relationship and how Freeman copes with it. The book is a little unbelievable in regards to their idealistic relationship. They *never* fight and are endlessly happy being together for years on end. The reader just has to accept these little quirks; otherwise, the story won't be as enjoyable.

Overall, "A Thousand Summers" is an easy to read, relatively fast-paced romance (no gratuitous sex scenes here). However, there's no major plot or conflict. In fact, Freeman and Sheila's affair isn't all that shocking or taboo, especially since neither one feels guilty about it, nor do their spouses really care. The ending wasn't too terribly impressive either. After more than 100 pages, the author must have realized that nothing very dramatic had happened and decided to just tack on a separate story line, which didn't have a lot--if anything--to do with their affair. While it's not a horrible book, there are a few flaws that keep me from giving it a "5." It's still worth checking out, though, if you like historical romantic literature.

Garson Kanin used an accumulated lifetime of Hollywood memories and experiences to create this very entertaining, if highly improable, novel.

Ben Farber is an eminent Hollywood mogul, on the level of Warner and Goldwyn, who, at age 92. has seemingly lost none of his zest for the movie business. Nevertheless he is seriously considering selling his Farber Studios to a rapacious Saudi businessman, who has sent a young agent from NY to Los Angeles to bid for the operation. The agent, however, takes a personal interest in Farber, and soon enough the Great Man is relating the story of his sojourn through seventy years of movie history.

A Russian Jewish immigrant to NY, Farber stumbles into the movie biz by accident, but he sees great potential for this new entertainment medium and sticks to it, eventually becoming the co-worker and confident of such early movie luminaries as Max Sennett, Mabel Normand, D.W. Griffith, and the man who started it all, Thomas Edison. Farber winds up a kind of Forrest Gump of Tinseltown. He is present at almost all the legendary events of early Hollywood. He's there during the notorious Fatty Arbuckle rape/murder trial. He's there when the great Garbo, a chunky Swedish gal with limited knowledge of English, arrives on American shores for her HOllywood debut with her director/friend/mentor Mauritz Stiller by her side. Garbo, of course, goes on to movie immortality; Still, however, is shunted aside by an industry that did not appreciate his genius. Farber's there when David O. Selznick launches the greatest casting call in movie history, to find just the right actress to play Scarlett O'Hara. He's there when a homely teenage girl named Norma Jean Mortensen blossoms into the greatest movie sex symbol ever, Marilyn Monroe.

This is a fun book, as larger than life and bombastic as a lavish old Warner Brothers musical. While not completely successful as a novel, the book offers any number of marvelous and amusing set pieces. My favorite is the David O. Selznick party thrown for all the potential Scarlett O'Haras, Joan Crawford, Carole Lombard, Better Davis,Tallulah Bankhead, and Paulette Goddard among them, which degenerates into a real bitchfest. But the Arbuckle episode is also a highlight, sensitive and touching, as we watch a huge talent (literal and figurative) destroyed by the avarice and self-interest of others. I also love the early chapter where curious onlookers come to Ben's general store in New Jersey to watch the first primitive movies projected on a makeshift screen.

Kanin plays games with the narrative structure. One minute he's narrating in past tense, the next in present. Sometimes Farber's our narrator, other times it is the agent, still others it is an omniscent third person narrator. But that's all right. Kanin obviously wasn't writing to win a Nobel Prize or the close scrutiny of literary deconstructuralists. He was writing to entertain.

And he does that admirably.

I love behind the scene sort of books and this was terrific as Garson Kanins books generally are. The best part in all honesty had to be Olivier and Leigh's "discussion" over Garbo.

Garson Kanin was terrified of Willie Maugham. Perhaps that is how he remained in a limbo state of good grace when so many others did not. But we are told that Maugham actually preferred Ruth Gordon, Kanin's wife. The problem with this book is that it's almost painful to read due to Kanin's fear of offending the indisputable master who, truth be told, was an intolerant despot.
The result is a book that provides less insight into Maugham than it does into Kanin. The resulting anxiety dominates and obscures the promise of an intimate picture of this contentious, genius and diletante. Kanin describes sending back a bottle of wine with the disclosure that he would never have done that alone. (Actually, Maugham did it anyway.) Following an offensive remark about Italians, Kanin musters up the courage to say that it was a gross generalization. To that Maugham replied, that without generalizations there would be no conversation. Not once are we apprised of a 'score' on Kanin's part. The hagiography may be warrented, in fact I think it is, but why put yourself through these anguished recapitulations that were often masochistic. Furthermore, why put it in print?
I love Maugham, and I wanted an insider's view but frankly, one gets more substance from the less personalized accounts. He is a worthy writer, a sharp disector (he was a physician, afterall) of the ignoble colonial practices that were practically a religion of British imperialism. Kanin missed so many opportunities -as a result of his timid obsession- to genuinely study the multi-faceted gentleman. I would love to know for instance, how Maugham really felt about the indigenous people and self- determination. I'd also like very much to hear his politically incorrect 'generalizations.' We do get a lot of Maugham pontificating about writing.
Kanin's book is a disappointment. I cannot recommend it for my fellow Maugham lovers- I'm sorry to say.