Fate Keeps on Happening: Adventures of Lorelei Lee & Other Writings

by Anita Loos, Ray Pierre Corsini (Editor)

Features the best of Loos's short pieces never before collected and new, previously unpublished pieces that include the Lorelei Lee stories and satires and sketches

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Classics

293 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

People best know American writer Anita Loos for her novels, especially Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925), which she later adapted for film; her many screenplays include The Girl from Missouri (1934).

She authored plays and her blockbuster comic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Loos

Reviews

[Alvin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first part of FKOH consists of new stories narrated by Loos's dizzy flapper from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Lorelie Lee. Sad to say, lifted out of her 1920s context, she's simply not funny. Fortunately the bulk of the book consists of Loos's essays. She's full of opinions and advice, much of it clever and/or insightful, much of it rather crotchety. Somehow, though, even when she's ranting about hippies, Freud, and other modernities she disapproves of, Loos is still sort of charmingly loopy. The best thing about book, hands down, are her tales of Hollywood's golden age (and earlier, she started with silents!), where she hobnobbed not only with movie stars, but emigre intellectuals like Aldous Huxley and Christopher Isherwood.

[Enrique · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fate Keeps Happening is a collection of Anita Loos's short stories, writings, and memoirs that all range in both quality and subject material. If you, like many others, were disappointed by But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes, "Part One" of the book more than makes up for it with 9 short stories/chapters of more Lorelei and Dorothy shenanigans, life after Blondes and Brunettes, and even Lorelei's take on historical events and figures of the mid 20th century.

As for the rest of the book, many of the chapters are rather hit or miss. I myself thoroughly enjoyed most of it, especially on the chapters exploring Hollywood's Golden Age and its most prominent figures. There's even a fun (albeit, pretty disturbing) chapter on the Fitzgeralds which was a treat. I found the book a bit dull near the end ("Part Five" in particular), but even the dullest chapters are salvaged by Anita's wit and writing. Highly recommend for any Anita Loos fans.