Iris Dorbian's Blog, page 8

"Love, Loss and Longing in the Age of Reagan" Featured On Two Blogs This Week!

In Jacey Holbrand's blog, I discuss the most rewarding and frustrating aspects of being a writer. Also featured is an excerpt from my book "Love, Loss and Longing in the Age of Reagan: Diary of a Mad Club Girl":
https://jaceyholbrand.wordpress.com/2...

And in Snowflakes in a Blizzard, I discuss the reasons why I wrote the book, my inspiration--my college years and how I came up with the title. I also make a reference to a certain NYC mayor who was president of my dorm when I was attending college. "Love, Loss and Longing in the Age of Reagan: Diary of a Mad Club Girl"https://snowflakesarise.wordpress.com...
Check them out and please let me know what you think!

Check Out Review of My Book, "Love, Loss and Longing in the Age of Reagan"

"Perfect book to sit back with and escape the reality of today's times"--from Undercover Book Reviews on "Love, Loss and Longing in the Age of Reagan: Diary of a Mad Club Girl" by Iris Dorbian

Check it out:
http://undercoverbookreviews.blogspot...

My Book is Free on Amazon Today 8/25 & Tomorrow 8/26!

FYI, Amazon.com is having a special free promotion for my book "Love, Loss and Longing in the Age of Reagan." Today (8/25) and Wednesday (8/26), it will be free on Kindle. But only for these two days: http://www.amazon.com/Love-Loss-Longi...

And FYI, the book recently got a five-star review from Reader's Favorite: https://readersfavorite.com/book-revi...

Check Out My Review of "Brian Jones: The Making of The Rolling Stones"

Brian Jones: The Making of the Rolling Stones by Paul Trynka

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I feel very ambivalent about this book: On one hand, I admire how well written it is as well as the keen interest the author has for his subject, Brian Jones, the tragic founder of The Rolling Stones; on the other hand, this book is so arrogantly and steadfastly biased against Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, that it's hard to take it seriously at times. Not only does Trynka blame the duo, famously dubbed "The Glimmer Twins, for everything that went wrong for Jones , I'm surprised 9/11, the 2007-08 Wall Street meltdown and other modern ills were not factored into the equation.

This isn't to say that Jagger and Richards were not culpable in Jones' downfall. They were to a certain degree; however, much of that was orchestrated by their Machiavellian wunderkind manager Andrew Oldman who felt the sexually androgynous and charismatic frontman Jagger, aided and abetted by old childhood friend and guitarist par excellence Keith Richards, should muscle Jones out of the leadership and main decision-making. No doubt Oldman forcing Jagger and Richards to collaborate as songwriters so they could generate original material and thus be more competitive with rivals like The Beatles, exacerbated the growing power struggle with Jones who didn't write songs (although supposedly he was responsible for helping eke out a few classic tunes like "Ruby Tuesday" but for some reason never got the credit for them). Eventually, Jagger and Richards seized control of the Stones and marginalized Jones, further intensifying the latter's self-destructive tendencies.

By the time June 1969 came around, Jones was a drugged out shell of his former self, a consummate and versatile multi-instrumentalist, who at this juncture, could barely play the guitar, let alone the marimba (which he played in "Under My Thumb") or the accordion (which he played in "Back Street Girl"). Small wonder he was given the heave-ho by the Stones; a month later, he was found dead in his swimming pool under circumstances so murky that even today Rolling Stone biographers, aficionados, aging hangers-on and friends argue whether the drowning was an accident or murder (at the hands of contractor Frank Thorogood or sleazy sometime driver Tom Keylock).

The truth of Jones' death will never be known just as we most likely will never know how much of a role Jagger and Richards played in bringing about the ruin of Brian Jones. Obviously, Jagger's position as Stones' lead singer, the signature big-lipped face of the brand, coupled with he and Richards sharing songwriting duties, elevated and solidified their footing within the group as well as to the public.

Their reported mistreatment of Jones veered into blithe viciousness. Examples included abandoning Jones in a Morocco hospital while they went off gallivanting somewhere; and having Jones' musical contributions not recorded in a studio when Jones thought it was. This is terrible but mind you at this point and Trynka cites several sources who allege this, Jones was a blithering drugged-out mess. And, girlfriend Anita Pallenberg leaving him for Richards following the Morocco trip only unhinged the increasingly unstable Jones. Then there were the police raids on his home for drugs and the trials that exacted a damaging psychological toll on his state of mind.

But Jones was hardly free of reproach. He was supposedly violent and abusive toward Pallenberg on that trip. This Trynka does not deny although he does downplay it because it doesn't fit his agenda to demonize Jagger and Richards while portraying Jones as a hapless rock and roll martyr.

To be frank, the real mystery here is how Jones was able to live to 27 considering his massive drug intake and his frail health worsened by an ongoing battle with asthma and mental illness. The author has such an ax to grind against Jagger and Richards that he barely touches upon the latter. Given how he describes Jones' frequent manic mood swings, the dangerously volatile behavior, the unbridled promiscuity (four illegitimate children with four different underaged women before age 21?) and the wanton excesses, I agreed with the bipolar term that Trynka cavalierly tosses in one sentence and bizarrely never mentions again. It probably was the root of much of Jones' problems and it's unfortunate that Jagger and Richards, whom Jones supposedly loved like brothers, the author tells us, didn't extend too much sympathy to their bandmate's issues.

I remember watching a documentary on the Stones in which Jagger discussed Jones' self-destructiveness. To paraphrase him, Jagger said he and Richards took a lot of drugs but at least they could function; Jones could not. That was the bottom line. The Rolling Stones was a business, which Jagger, a former student at the London School of Economics, characterized as such. Jones was becoming the machine's unworkable cog that needed to be removed. Case closed.

Although I enjoyed reading about Jones' background and the genesis of his love of music, especially jazz, I was irritated by Trynka's vendetta against Jagger and Richards and his need to single them both out as the drivers of Jones' disintegration. Yes, they're not blameless here. But the real tragedy is a society and a system that did not view mental illness and drug rehabilitation with the same gravitas and sensitivity that we currently do. If they had, Jones might have licked his addictions, kept the bipolar tendencies under control and maybe started over with a new band. Perhaps that should have been the angle explored by Trynka rather than rehashing an old grievance.




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My Thoughts on "The Visit From the Goon Squad"

Not a rave:

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


George Bernard-Shaw once famously said, "All professions are conspiracies against the laity." After reading this book, an inexplicable recipient of two of the literary world's most prestigious laurels--the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction--I'm wondering if GBS really meant to substitute "professions" with literary elite. Or maybe the author Jennifer Egan had blackmail photos or compromising videos of these highbrow literary arbiters because I can't think of how anyone with a modicum of taste and judgement not altered by narcotics or insanity could give this rambling, boring, disjointed, indulgent mess (replete with a maddening 50 page PowerPoint--yes POWERPOINT presentation on some idiotic banality not worthy of wasting the paper it's printed on) any kind of honor. I know Egan has been a darling of the literati since the publication of her first book. Okay, I have no issue with that. But to laud to the heavens unalloyed dreck like this because Egan is a hallowed name among the literary in-crowd is astonishing. A perfect example of the old emperor is wearing no clothes parable.

Not that the book is without merit. It does start off with some promise and flourish. As a fan of the late 1970s/early 1980s Punk/New Wave music scene, I was very intrigued by a novel set in that milieu. Unfortunately, that excitement soon degenerated into unrelieved irritation as the story began to encompass a constellation of uninteresting, tertiary characters. Then suddenly, the PowerPoint presentation from hell materializes from nowhere and my life flashes before my eyes, with each interminable minute seeming like a metronome ticking away into eternity.

Not recommended.




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Check Out My Author Interview with YA Promo Central Blog!

This is a very cool blog in which they promote YA novels exclusively. I just did an interview with them recently where I discuss my book "Love, Loss and Longing in the Age of Reagan: Diary of a Mad Club Girl."

Here's the link: http://yapromocentral.com/2015/07/int...

Check out this Five Star Review For "Love, Loss and Longing in the Age of Reagan: Diary of a Mad Club Girl"

Completed on:
07/05/2015
Review Rating:
5 stars! Mad Club Girl"|25341926]
Reviewed By Jack Magnus for Readers’ Favorite

Love, Loss and Longing in the Age of Reagan: Diary of a Mad Club Girl is a young adult coming of age novel written by Iris Dorbian. Edie fell in love with Greenwich Village when she was 15 years old. Her parents had taken her to see a musical performance there, and she left with a resolve to get her sliding grades back under control and work towards admission to NYU. It worked, and she made the move from Bergen County, New Jersey, across the river to the big city. New York was a heady place to be in 1979, the year Edie began her academic life at NYU. And from almost the beginning of her freshman year, there was Peter. Alternately enticing and faintly repulsive, Peter would be Edie's first real boyfriend, though their relationship was soon soured by his infidelities. Even as she went on with her life, there was never really any way to avoid him.

Iris Dorbian's young adult coming of age story, Love, Loss and Longing in the Age of Reagan: Diary of a Mad Club Girl, is a marvelous and compelling tale that reads like a memoir and immerses the reader in New York City during the 1980s. This story is so authentic and real that at times I had to remind myself that I was reading fiction. I fell in love with New York City all over again as I was seeing and experiencing it through Edie's eyes. Dorbian's characters are thoughtfully and carefully crafted, and her plot takes the reader through Edie's four years at NYU with an intuitive feel for how those college years do rush by, and she conveys that dislocated, sad and nostalgic feeling many seniors get as they approach graduation day so well. Love, Loss and Longing in the Age of Reagan is a most impressive debut novel that was a sheer delight to read. It's most highly recommended.

Check out my review of "Beautiful Ruins"

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


When I first picked up this book, I thought it was about American tourists in Italy in the early 1960s. Now after having read the book, I WISH that had been the story! Pasquale, the small hotel proprietor who inherits the business from his father, is a great character and I was intrigued by his growing friendship/relationship with Dee Moray, the film extra, who unbeknownst to herself (don't ask) is terminally ill. Spoiler alert: When you find out that she's not dying but in reality pregnant (and doesn't seem to know it yet--the dope) by Richard Burton (yes, THAT Richard Burton), then the plausibility of this story goes out the window. And no, Elizabeth Taylor does not make an appearance although she is greatly referenced.

There's also a publicist turned legendary Hollywood producer in this story and his disenchanted development head/assistant/whatever.

I did enjoy the descriptions of Italy.



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Check out my latest book review of "Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle"

Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle by Dan Senor

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Even though this book was published in 2009 and cites some startups that have since folded, it is still an exhaustively researched and excellently written analysis of just why a country the size of New Jersey flanked by hostile neighbors boasts the highest volume of startups in the world second only to Silicon Valley. It's a question that both perplexes and fascinates the authors as they set out to find an answer to explain the "economic miracle" of Israel.

Bear in mind that up until the 1990s, Israel was a country in which hyperinflation reigned supreme. The country was spending most of its resources on defense and very little, if any, was earmarked toward innovation. The tech scene was barely existent and venture capitalists avoided investing in Israel, fearing there'd be no payoff due to the country's history of wars and instability.

But several factors shifted Israel from being a European country in exile, isolated by her neighbors and widely ostracized by the world due to lingering anti-Semitism and an allegiance to oil. They include the huge influx of Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union that flooded into Israel in the 1980s and 1990s. According to the book, this highly educated and accomplished group was very instrumental in pushing Israel toward economic success as one out of every three was a scientist, engineer or technician.

Another driver was Israel's military training, which places an equal premium on collaboration but also thinking individually. Plus, there is no pronounced sense of hierarchy in the army (nor in Israeli society). Everyone, regardless of rank or station, is casual with one another and it's not uncommon for someone of lower rank to challenge a commander or a high-ranking officer on making the wrong decision. In any other country, including our own, that would be inconceivable, an egregious form of insubordination. In Israel, it's the norm and routinely encouraged.

Also, the tech training that conscripts receive while in the army is on a caliber equal to what one would receive at an institution like MIT. And couple that with a culture that does not stigmatize failure the way our society does and you have a world that is highly conducive to entrepreneurs launching startups.

If I have any quibbles about this book, then it would be the authors going off on lengthy tangents when discussing how different Israel's startup culture is in relation to the rest of the world and just why she has succeeded where others have not. I understand the authors are trying to make a point by putting everything in context to explain the maddening but intriguing conundrum of Israel's status as "startup nation" but the occasionally rambling exposition on other countries annoyed me a few times and made me think, "okay, I get the point--now please get back to Israel."

Otherwise, this is a very fine book, which I highly recommend. Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle






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Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle

Check out my review of Philip Roth's "The Plot Against America"

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Plot Against America The master strikes again! Except for the rushed and somewhat preposterous ending (which made me downgrade the rating from 5 to 4), this is a fascinating book that wrestles with a scary hypothesis: What would have happened to our country in the early 1940s if Roosevelt had lost re-election to someone like Charles Lindbergh, the iconic aviation hero who was also an unregenerate Nazi sympathizer and anti-Semite? Roth alters history by constructing an alternative reality highly reminiscent of what German Jews experienced after Hitler was elected Chancellor. Instead of concentration camps, Roth's apocalypse is one in which the federal government begins instituting programs under the guise of helping Jews better ease into mainstream society; in reality, it's all a ruse designed to further marginalize Jews and set them apart as pariahs.

That's made ominously clear when the Roth family (Roth cleverly uses his own family in the story) receives a federal order to "resettle" in a small town in Kentucky, presumably under the pretext of integrating them into the heartland where Jews are scant. However, it's just part of the newly elected administration's play to segregate Jews from the mainstream--again very similar to the early days of Nazi Germany after the Nuremburg laws, which promulgated the Third Reich's anti-Semitic policy, was enacted.

At first, Sandy, Philip's brother, falls under the seductive sway of the new administration. At the prodding of an aunt who gets involved with and later marries a high-profile rabbi, an ambitious opportunist who successfully ingratiates himself with the new government by betraying his own people, Sandy participates in a program for Jewish youth that sends them to live one summer with a family in the heartland. Supposedly, the program is all about Jewish youth learning a different way of life--in Sandy's instance, it's about farming. But the true purpose of the program--to alienate Jewish youth from their families--is far more insidious. Philip's father Herman, the most moving and heroic character in the book, sees through the charade and doesn't hesitate to voice his protest.

One of my favorite sections is early in the book when Herman takes his family to a trip to Washington, D.C. There in our nation's capitol, the Roth family experiences anti-Semitism in all its unpalatable glory. After being squired around all day by an highly erudite tour guide, whose encyclopedic knowledge of history is rivaled by his unflappable calm and even-keeled manner, the family goes back to their hotel only to find themselves summarily ejected after the establishment realizes their guests are Jewish. Of course, the hotel comes up with some lame excuse as to why they can no longer accommodate the Roths. Again, Herman, the book's unapologetic truthsayer, sees through the ugly subterfuge and rightfully blasts the hotel brass for it.

It's a very chilling reminder of the dark side in our modern history. Yes, this episode might be fictionalized but if you read about 20th century U.S. history and scour old newspaper archives (look at old job or housing ads seeking "good Christians"), you'll see there's a lot of factual evidence underlying it.

Although the conclusion seems a bit tacked-on and haphazard, almost as if Roth was getting tired of telling the story and wanted to cut it short, the writing is brilliant, superbly nuanced and evocative. It paints a vivid, three-dimensional portrait of a nightmarish America that could have easily happened but thankfully did not. Well done, even with the flawed ending.





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