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24 - Wednesday, August 16, 1989 - North Shore News

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King of the Night is fascinating tras

ITIS a genre without any
redeeming factor, a form
composed of print products
so totally lacking in value
that the only thing lower on
the evolutionary scale is the
supermarket tabloid.

This is the seamy, steamy
underside of printdom, an im-
mensely lucrative netherworld of
back-stabbing, vendettas, betrayal
and gleeful loathing.

Itis a place where infamy
triumphs and al! things wholesome
are mercilessly ground into the
bottom line, a place some might
label crass, vulgar and worthless
but that your reviewer prefers to
call — The Trash Zone.

Who is Laurence Leamer and
why is he saying such nasty things
about Tonight Show host and ;
Hollywood icon Johnny Carson?
Leamer’s biographical The King of
The Night (Morrow/Gage; 448 pp.;
$25.95 in hardcover) drags out
more dirty linen than the Holiday
Inn.

Leamer wrote this book without
the late-night host’s permission or
collaboration, but claims to have
interviewed over 700 people who
know Carson; most of them seem
to have hated his guts.

From ex-wives (three) to fired
producers, directors, talent orga-
nizers and band leaders to rival
talkshow hosts, school ‘chums’
and a legion of others, virtually
everyone takes a brief turn at
crucifying the most famous JC of
modern times.

While writing gushingly about
Carson’s comedic strongpoints,
Leamer paints a devastating image
of a wife-beating alcoholic, a
callous friend, an indifferent father
and a philandering lover. Not
since Marc Antony’s funeral
speech in Julius Caesar have we
seen such hypocritical posturing in
the written realm.

The King of The Nighi has it all:
drunken fights, illicit affairs, drug-
addicted offspring, alimony bat-
tles, bitter behind-the-scenes
manoeuvrings, jealousy and other
pursuits of the Tinseltown elite.

in between, Leamer manages to
dump some of the Litchiest trivia
he could dredge up from the dep-
ths of bruised Hollywood psyches:
jibes on clothing and decorating
tastes, neighbors’ complaints and
the recriminations of bruised,
former employees and spouses.

Does anyone care whom Johnny
bedded? Are we interested in his
belligerent boozing, his near-
brushes with disgruntled Mafia
hoods, his salary negotiations,
practical jokes, failed marriages,
troubled kids or choice of bond-
age magazines?

For all those who abhor this kind .

of mindless meandering and want
to be absolutely sure they don’t
buy or borrow it by mistake, the
utle once again is The King of The
Night... :

8
julie Burchill may be one of the

492 Marine Dr.
North Van
986-1605

most calculating writers plying the
world’s second-oldest trade. Her
latest book, Ambition, is a recipe
for success with time-tested,
bestseller ingredients: sex, money,
sex, power and more sex.

MIKE
STEELE

book review

Meet Susan Street, wanna-be

editor of the sensationalistic British

tabloid, The Sunday Best.

There’s nothing Susan won't do
in her quest for the unholy grail:
cheat, lie, blackmail or — well,

you could ask her former boss but

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"68 Comeback Special,”
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too many nights filled with pas-
sion, Susan and amy! nitrate have
finally relegated him to his own
obituary columns.

The Best’s new owner is a
suthless, power wielding American
by the name of Tobias Pope, a
man with decidedly secular views
on the position Susan desperately
seeks and the positions she will
have to assume if she ever hopes
to get there.

The component that ultimately
saves Ambition is its unmatched
cynicism. Men, women, love,
Yuppiedom, sexual appetites and
Big Business are shredded by Bur-
chill with such consummate,
vicious acerbity that what might
othenvise have been dismissed as
TrashLit reads suspiciously like
parody.

As is often the case today, many
of this book’: best lines are un-
quotable in a ismily newspaper,

but let’s try a few sanitized sam-
ples and hope for the best.

Of her reason for choosing to be
gay, Susan’s Welsh female assis-
tant says: ‘‘} was seventeen... It
went awful from the start; {was a
good chapel girl, | knew nothing
about the dirty deed. | thought I
was frigid, he told me enough
times | was. He was a right slag,
even after we were married.

“So | was sitting in the doctor's
waiting-room one night waiting for
my monthly supply of instant
thrombosis and | read in some
magazine about how to improve
your marriage. Well, mine could
use some improving. And rule one
was ‘Interest yourself in your
husband’s hobby.’ And | realized
that Dai’s hobbies were rugby and
women. I’m not athletic, so
women were all that was left.”

And Brazil’s libidinous reputa-
tion is caustically analyzed by

“Blue Hewaii.” “Pure —

Gold,” “TV Specia’,” “The Sun

Collertion.”

Susan in the following: “If Rio
was the Bangkok of Latin America
it was only that the recklessness of
the desperate was always wilfully
mistaken for sensuality by the
people who sought to exploit it.
To call the Brazilians hedonistic
was like saying that American
ghetto blacks were hedonistic
because they took drugs, caught
AiOS and otherwise destroyed
themselves. brazil was a ghetto,
and, like most ghettos, it doubled
as a playground for the rich. Phys-
ically and fiscally, Brazil was being
screwed.”

While Ambition (Badley Head/
Random House; 263 pp.; $21.50
in hardcover) might be dismissed
as trash, it is far too cleverly
crafted for such blithe treatment.
Regardless of her designs on other
parts of our anatomies, Ms. Bur-
chill just might be pulling our legs.

6 EACH
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