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Up with the Sun
A look back at the life of a little-known, C-list celebrity striver who met a bad end in New York City in the 1980s.
Dick Kallman was an up-and-coming actor—until he wasn’t. From co-starring in Broadway shows, to becoming part of Lucille Ball’s historic Desilu workshop, and then finally landing his own short-lived primetime TV series, Dick’s star was clearly on the rise. But his roles began to dry up and he faded from the spotlight - until his sensational murder in 1980. Told from the perspective of Matt Liannetto, Dick’s occasional pianist and longtime acquaintance, we see the full story of Dick’s life and death. Liannetto is a talented journeyman pianist, often on the fringes of Broadway history’s most important moments. He’s also a gay man who grew up in an era when that sort of information was closely held, and he struggles with accepting the rapid changes happening in the world around him.
Up With The Sun takes readers on a journey that spans more than thirty years, from the studio lots and rehearsal sets of the 1950s to the seedy streets of 1970s Manhattan. It is a busy, bustling world, peopled by a captivating cast of characters all clamoring for a sliver of the limelight. Readers will bump elbows with Sophie Tucker and gossip about Rock Hudson during intermission at Judy Garland’s comeback show. Newsweek has called Mallon a "master of the historical novel," and here he proves himself a veteran of the genre, doing what he does conjuring figures from history who feel real enough to walk right off the page. This is a crime story, a showbiz story, a love story, and a deeply moving story about a series of pivotal moments in the history of gay life in the post-war era.
Dick Kallman was an up-and-coming actor—until he wasn’t. From co-starring in Broadway shows, to becoming part of Lucille Ball’s historic Desilu workshop, and then finally landing his own short-lived primetime TV series, Dick’s star was clearly on the rise. But his roles began to dry up and he faded from the spotlight - until his sensational murder in 1980. Told from the perspective of Matt Liannetto, Dick’s occasional pianist and longtime acquaintance, we see the full story of Dick’s life and death. Liannetto is a talented journeyman pianist, often on the fringes of Broadway history’s most important moments. He’s also a gay man who grew up in an era when that sort of information was closely held, and he struggles with accepting the rapid changes happening in the world around him.
Up With The Sun takes readers on a journey that spans more than thirty years, from the studio lots and rehearsal sets of the 1950s to the seedy streets of 1970s Manhattan. It is a busy, bustling world, peopled by a captivating cast of characters all clamoring for a sliver of the limelight. Readers will bump elbows with Sophie Tucker and gossip about Rock Hudson during intermission at Judy Garland’s comeback show. Newsweek has called Mallon a "master of the historical novel," and here he proves himself a veteran of the genre, doing what he does conjuring figures from history who feel real enough to walk right off the page. This is a crime story, a showbiz story, a love story, and a deeply moving story about a series of pivotal moments in the history of gay life in the post-war era.
352 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 7, 2023
127 people are currently reading
4201 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Mallon
40 books287 followersThomas Mallon is an American novelist, essayist, and critic. His novels are renowned for their attention to historical detail and context and for the author's crisp wit and interest in the "bystanders" to larger historical events. He is the author of ten books of fiction, including Henry and Clara, Two Moons, Dewey Defeats Truman, Aurora 7, Bandbox, Fellow Travelers (recently adapted into a miniseries by the same name), Watergate, Finale, Landfall, and most recently Up With the Sun. He has also published nonfiction on plagiarism (Stolen Words), diaries (A Book of One's Own), letters (Yours Ever) and the John F. Kennedy assassination (Mrs. Paine's Garage), as well as two volumes of essays (Rockets and Rodeos and In Fact).
He is a former literary editor of Gentleman's Quarterly, where he wrote the "Doubting Thomas" column in the 1990s, and has contributed frequently to The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The American Scholar, and other periodicals. He was appointed a member of the National Council on the Humanities in 2002 and served as Deputy Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 2005 to 2006.
His honors include Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships, the National Book Critics Circle citation for reviewing, and the Vursell prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for distinguished prose style. He was elected as a new member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012.
He is a former literary editor of Gentleman's Quarterly, where he wrote the "Doubting Thomas" column in the 1990s, and has contributed frequently to The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The American Scholar, and other periodicals. He was appointed a member of the National Council on the Humanities in 2002 and served as Deputy Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 2005 to 2006.
His honors include Guggenheim and Rockefeller fellowships, the National Book Critics Circle citation for reviewing, and the Vursell prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for distinguished prose style. He was elected as a new member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 102 reviews
October 21, 2024
I had great expectations for this book, and I'm rating it 3 stars, which means a solid (or solid-enough) book, but... I had hoped for a lot more. At the end of the day, I'm not sure exactly why Thomas Mallon chose real-life mid-century 3rd-tier actor/singer Dick Kallman to hang a story on. Right from the beginning Kallman is presented as insincere and I would say more than a little reptilian. So to read a fictionalized account of his life for almost 400 pages, well, that sometimes was a bit much.
March 6, 2023
I received a free advance digital galley from the publisher, via Netgalley.
I was a little confused when I started this book, because even though the Author’s Note at the beginning says it’s a fictionalized rendering of Dick Kallman’s life and death, I’d never heard of Dick Kallman. That made me wonder if maybe this was actually fiction, with the author trying a little bluff by characterizing it as based on a real person. But a quick bit of Google-fu set me straight. There really was a Dick Kallman who had a career on the stage and TV. And it is not a spoiler to say that the other notable thing about Kallman—and this book—is that Kallman and his boyfriend were murdered in their New York townhouse apartment (which doubled as an antiques shop) in 1980.
The story plays out in alternating chapters. One set of chapters is narrated by Matt Liannetto, a Broadway pianist who started out on the New York stage with Kallman back in 1951, in a show called Seventeen, and nearly 30 years later was surprised to find himself invited to be one of several guests of Kallman’s for dinner the night of Kallman’s murder. (As far as I can tell, Liannetto is fictional, but I don’t know for sure.) The Liannetto chapters make for a sort of whodunnit, in which Liannetto describes some disquieting events at the dinner party, his involvement in the police investigation, and his meeting, through that investigation, a young man who becomes his late-in-life love.
In the other chapters, an omniscient narrator takes us through Kallman’s career and encounters with far-more-famous actors like Lucille Ball, with scores of other famous names making cameo appearances, like Dyan Cannon, Rock Hudson, Judy Garland, Sophie Tucker, Henry Fonda, Myrna Loy, and many more. Kallman fell in love with a fellow Broadway actor back in that 1951 show; a love that was very much unrequited and remained an obsession for Kallman throughout his life. Kallman had talent, but he made no friends, because he was so ambitious that he would betray any relationship if he thought it might help him get ahead.
Mallon is known for writing fictionalized stories about politics, so why write about an actor few readers will have heard of? It looks to me like the connection is that Mallon likes to write about how people with power and/or ambition can often crash and burn because they go too far, and there is a self-destructive side to their characters. That’s certainly the case with Kallman, a man who is his own worst enemy though, with his talent, he might have had more success if he’d just been a nicer guy. As the years go by, he often runs into Carole Cook, another veteran of the Seventeen show, who seems to serve as a sort of what-might-have-been character. Cook, another real person, is a sincerely nice person, and while never achieving the heights of stardom, she worked in theater, TV and film regularly from the 1950s until the late 2010s. (Cook’s most notable role was Grandma Helen in Sixteen Candles. She died just last week, three days short of her 99th birthday.)
Liannetto’s character is sweetly appealing, and his whodunnit chapters hold interest even if they can be a too long-winded, but the Kallman history chapters are not a pleasure to read. The problem is that he’s just so hard to sympathize with, even when he’s berating himself for being a jerk. He was just a nasty, grasping, user of a man whose lousy character sabotaged everything his talent gained for him. No matter how well-written and insightful this book is—especially about the silly games closeted actors used to have to go through—it’s a depressing read.
I was a little confused when I started this book, because even though the Author’s Note at the beginning says it’s a fictionalized rendering of Dick Kallman’s life and death, I’d never heard of Dick Kallman. That made me wonder if maybe this was actually fiction, with the author trying a little bluff by characterizing it as based on a real person. But a quick bit of Google-fu set me straight. There really was a Dick Kallman who had a career on the stage and TV. And it is not a spoiler to say that the other notable thing about Kallman—and this book—is that Kallman and his boyfriend were murdered in their New York townhouse apartment (which doubled as an antiques shop) in 1980.
The story plays out in alternating chapters. One set of chapters is narrated by Matt Liannetto, a Broadway pianist who started out on the New York stage with Kallman back in 1951, in a show called Seventeen, and nearly 30 years later was surprised to find himself invited to be one of several guests of Kallman’s for dinner the night of Kallman’s murder. (As far as I can tell, Liannetto is fictional, but I don’t know for sure.) The Liannetto chapters make for a sort of whodunnit, in which Liannetto describes some disquieting events at the dinner party, his involvement in the police investigation, and his meeting, through that investigation, a young man who becomes his late-in-life love.
In the other chapters, an omniscient narrator takes us through Kallman’s career and encounters with far-more-famous actors like Lucille Ball, with scores of other famous names making cameo appearances, like Dyan Cannon, Rock Hudson, Judy Garland, Sophie Tucker, Henry Fonda, Myrna Loy, and many more. Kallman fell in love with a fellow Broadway actor back in that 1951 show; a love that was very much unrequited and remained an obsession for Kallman throughout his life. Kallman had talent, but he made no friends, because he was so ambitious that he would betray any relationship if he thought it might help him get ahead.
Mallon is known for writing fictionalized stories about politics, so why write about an actor few readers will have heard of? It looks to me like the connection is that Mallon likes to write about how people with power and/or ambition can often crash and burn because they go too far, and there is a self-destructive side to their characters. That’s certainly the case with Kallman, a man who is his own worst enemy though, with his talent, he might have had more success if he’d just been a nicer guy. As the years go by, he often runs into Carole Cook, another veteran of the Seventeen show, who seems to serve as a sort of what-might-have-been character. Cook, another real person, is a sincerely nice person, and while never achieving the heights of stardom, she worked in theater, TV and film regularly from the 1950s until the late 2010s. (Cook’s most notable role was Grandma Helen in Sixteen Candles. She died just last week, three days short of her 99th birthday.)
Liannetto’s character is sweetly appealing, and his whodunnit chapters hold interest even if they can be a too long-winded, but the Kallman history chapters are not a pleasure to read. The problem is that he’s just so hard to sympathize with, even when he’s berating himself for being a jerk. He was just a nasty, grasping, user of a man whose lousy character sabotaged everything his talent gained for him. No matter how well-written and insightful this book is—especially about the silly games closeted actors used to have to go through—it’s a depressing read.
February 23, 2023
Up With the Sun is a well-researched show business/crime novel, complete with coordinated photography, which I found interesting as well as entertaining. Bravo talented author, Thomas Mallon!
This beautiful novel will make a perfect gift for those friends that are fascinated & curious about the worlds of Hollywood and Broadway.
This beautiful novel will make a perfect gift for those friends that are fascinated & curious about the worlds of Hollywood and Broadway.
April 9, 2023
Generous with the two stars. A lack of character development made this a very tedious read.
February 11, 2023
I could not put this book down. I absolutely loved it because it was a mix of true crime and old Hollywood/Broadway. The book alternates between the story of Dick Kallman as a struggling actor in the 1950's and 1960"s who knows many famous people and the 1980's in the aftermath and trial for his murder. There is a pin that carries great significance throughout the book even though it seems inconsequential at first. I got really engaged with the characters and the heartbreak of being closeted during that time with fears of being outed. This is a fictionalized novel of real life characters and celebrities and I found myself referring to IMDB to read up on some of the key players. I really enjoyed the read -- Thomas Mallon is a great and clever writer and I plan to read "Fellow Travelers" an older book of his next. I highly recommend this book.
Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
June 6, 2023
FIrst book by Thomas Mallon - I know he has a good rep and I really wanted to like this book more. But alas i found the two parallel stories never really caught fire for me - especially the murder/mystery story with Matt Liannetta - the piano accompanist who first met Dick Kallman the central real life actor in the Broadway production of the musical of Booth Tarkington's Seventeen.
Dick Kallman the "rising star" of 1951 per Theater World Awards - had a network show Hank and had a huge crush on Kenny - his co-star in Seventeen - who basically could care less. Dick's life told in parallel chapters to his brutal murder with his partner Stephen (no spoiler - that's the premise) - is the most interesting thing here - with cameos by Sophie Tucker - Lucille Ball - Rock Hudson - lots of backstage gossip that is mostly true. Mallon is known for his historical fiction and bringing the past to life. Dick is basically a closeted gay in the 1950s-1980s (he does eventually sort of come out)- with an obsession on Kenny the man who got away. He is a could have been who turned into a has been (never would be). He is an unsavory and not particularly likable character - but boy does he interract with a lot of the denizens of Hollywood/Broadway/TV and those stories are wonderful. Unfortunately the story of his murder and Matt is much more lacklustre - and the finale very underwhelming. There is a story here of the life of a gay actor from that period - and the hoops he had to jump through - and the secret life (hustlers and S&M, fatal attractions) - plus the secret life of gay actors in that period - and how - though not necessarily their sexuality could limit their careers unless they play the game of unconsumated marriages with women - children - pieces in the press. But overall though well written - with a lot of juicy tidbits - the story just never gelled for me though i so wished it did. I see there is new TV adaptation of Fellow Travellers - a DC gay historical story. I will certainly try another book!
Dick Kallman the "rising star" of 1951 per Theater World Awards - had a network show Hank and had a huge crush on Kenny - his co-star in Seventeen - who basically could care less. Dick's life told in parallel chapters to his brutal murder with his partner Stephen (no spoiler - that's the premise) - is the most interesting thing here - with cameos by Sophie Tucker - Lucille Ball - Rock Hudson - lots of backstage gossip that is mostly true. Mallon is known for his historical fiction and bringing the past to life. Dick is basically a closeted gay in the 1950s-1980s (he does eventually sort of come out)- with an obsession on Kenny the man who got away. He is a could have been who turned into a has been (never would be). He is an unsavory and not particularly likable character - but boy does he interract with a lot of the denizens of Hollywood/Broadway/TV and those stories are wonderful. Unfortunately the story of his murder and Matt is much more lacklustre - and the finale very underwhelming. There is a story here of the life of a gay actor from that period - and the hoops he had to jump through - and the secret life (hustlers and S&M, fatal attractions) - plus the secret life of gay actors in that period - and how - though not necessarily their sexuality could limit their careers unless they play the game of unconsumated marriages with women - children - pieces in the press. But overall though well written - with a lot of juicy tidbits - the story just never gelled for me though i so wished it did. I see there is new TV adaptation of Fellow Travellers - a DC gay historical story. I will certainly try another book!
May 31, 2024
This novel had two interwoven timelines. One of the two central characters, Dick Kallman, is murdered very early in the novel. His story is told in the third person and spans from 1950 until the time of his murder in 1980. The other timeline is told in the first person by an acquaintance of the protagonist named Matt. Matt had known Dick since the 1950s through his work in the theatre. Matt's story is on the post murder timeline.
Each person in the third person timeline covers a different year or part of Dick's life. There are so many people and famous actors like Lucille Ball who are name dropped and woven into the story. I really dislike this type of historical fiction. I would rate these chapters (half the book) at two stars.
Matt's first person timeline in the early 80s was quite good and dealt almost exclusively with the aftermath of the murder and some of his own health issues. It was quite good and interesting. I would rate this part of the book at 4 stars.
Why did the author overcomplicate this novel? This fragmented approach seemed very strange to me and it didn't work really well. The potential was there though.
3.5 stars
August 16, 2023
Two timelines here. One starts in 1980 with a dinner party in New York given by Dick Kallman, a former actor of very minor celebrity, an evening that ends in the murder of Dick and his lover, Steven. This is narrated by Matt, a pianist who's known Dick since his early days in show business. The other, narrated in third person, tells the story of Dick's career, from with his ambitious beginnings in musical theatre in the early 1950s, through the sputterings of said career, reaching an unimpressive peak with a crappy sitcom in the 1960s, to its final collapse in the 1970s and his retreat first into fashion then into dodgy antique dealing. The vast majority of performers, of course, never become stars, though presumably most of them wanted to be stars. Do you ever look at some young face in the background in an old movie and wonder what they thought was going to happen to them? Did they say their one line and think, "This is my big break! I'm going to be a star!"? Dick Kallman was one of those people; he got more more breaks than most, really, including being mentored by Lucille Ball for a while, but he never made it big largely because he was kind of an asshole. Nobody liked the guy. You probably won't like him either, but his story is interesting--and not just because of its rather spectacular but really quite sad and sordid end.
The interest in the life story of this forgotten man lies partly in the perspective it gives us on show business ambition and the relentless desire to be famous, to be the person everyone wants to know, whose name everybody drops (why anyone would want this has always baffled me, but a lot of people do). This fame hunger is corrosive, and it certainly burns through whatever personal decency Dick Kallman started life with. His story also sheds some light on what it meant to be a gay man in America from the 1950s to the 1980s.
At first I wasn't sure what purpose the first-person narrator served, but I think in the end he offers us a different way of being in the world. Like Dick, Matt is talented but not extraordinarily so; he's also a gay man and figuring out how to live a life he wants within the limits available to him. The difference is that Matt, unlike Dick, is a decent man, a fundamentally good man who values human beings and his connections to them more than the use to which he can put them. And so he leads a life that is ultimately more successful in every way that matters than does Dick, who failed not just on his own terms--he never became a famous actor and star--but also on ours--he never grew beyond his limits, never figured out what it would really mean to be happy, to love, to be loved, to take pleasure in his time on this earth.
The interest in the life story of this forgotten man lies partly in the perspective it gives us on show business ambition and the relentless desire to be famous, to be the person everyone wants to know, whose name everybody drops (why anyone would want this has always baffled me, but a lot of people do). This fame hunger is corrosive, and it certainly burns through whatever personal decency Dick Kallman started life with. His story also sheds some light on what it meant to be a gay man in America from the 1950s to the 1980s.
At first I wasn't sure what purpose the first-person narrator served, but I think in the end he offers us a different way of being in the world. Like Dick, Matt is talented but not extraordinarily so; he's also a gay man and figuring out how to live a life he wants within the limits available to him. The difference is that Matt, unlike Dick, is a decent man, a fundamentally good man who values human beings and his connections to them more than the use to which he can put them. And so he leads a life that is ultimately more successful in every way that matters than does Dick, who failed not just on his own terms--he never became a famous actor and star--but also on ours--he never grew beyond his limits, never figured out what it would really mean to be happy, to love, to be loved, to take pleasure in his time on this earth.
May 9, 2023
Torturously dull
February 7, 2023
Mallon, author of such previous gems as Bandbox and Fellow Travelers, seems to be confusing writing with name-dropping lately. In his loosely connected Republican Apologist trilogy, the names are members of the Nixon, Reagan, and Bush 43 administrations. Here, the names are from show business in the 1950s-1970s. And while I appreciate that one of the names he drops is that of my own cousin, The Last of the Red Hot Mamas, Sophie Tucker, I know that most people these days have never heard of her, nor of many of the other players who come and go through this book.
The story centers around the life and murder of Dick Kallman, a never-star of stage and screen, who most people have also never heard of, and, harsh as it sounds to say this, probably won't care much about. Mallon portrays him as a shallow, callow, unethical, and more to the point for the main character of a novel, uninteresting.
The more interesting character is the purely fictional Matt Liannetto, who knew Dick sporadically through his acting career, and who was one of the last people to see him alive. Through him, we see the both the law and the order aspect of bringing Dick's killers to justice, which is somewhat compelling, in a macabre way. Matt himself is just a more interesting character, and I wish Mallon had just written a book about him, and made Dick Kallman a footnote to his story.
FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.
The story centers around the life and murder of Dick Kallman, a never-star of stage and screen, who most people have also never heard of, and, harsh as it sounds to say this, probably won't care much about. Mallon portrays him as a shallow, callow, unethical, and more to the point for the main character of a novel, uninteresting.
The more interesting character is the purely fictional Matt Liannetto, who knew Dick sporadically through his acting career, and who was one of the last people to see him alive. Through him, we see the both the law and the order aspect of bringing Dick's killers to justice, which is somewhat compelling, in a macabre way. Matt himself is just a more interesting character, and I wish Mallon had just written a book about him, and made Dick Kallman a footnote to his story.
FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.
April 7, 2023
Is this an impressive feat of research? Yes. Did it work for me as a novel? No. I actually wanted to not finish at a few points but then felt in too deep. For me, it’s just way too much time spent in the company of a one-dimensional reptilian con artist - blech. Knowing more about Dick made him more and more repulsive, to the point of not really caring about finding out the truth about what happened to him. The final reveal about the pin - the significance of which we’re hammered over the head with throughout the book - is lame, and then the author guilds the lily by over explaining the meaning behind Dick trying to save the pin and the pin being his ultimately undoing. I might’ve felt this was more like 2.5 but the ending was too eye roll. Would not recommend.
April 7, 2023
I enjoyed Mallon's latest foray into creating a fictional story around a real event or people. This time the story surrounds the 1980 murder of Dick Kallman, a 50s and 60s closeted entertainer who thought he was a bigger star than he ever was. Lots of name dropping of entertainers from years past, which might bother some, but was right up my alley.
July 6, 2024
Dick Kallman was a rising actor in the 1950s and 60s until his career declined, leading to his sensational murder in 1980. Through the perspective of his acquaintance Matt Liannetto, the story explores Kallman’s ambitions, unfulfilled love, and his interactions with stars like Lucille Ball, offering a glimpse into both showbiz history and the challenges of gay life during that era.
Ever heard of Dick Kallman? I hadn’t. I looked him up after I started reading, because I didn’t realize he was a real person.
I fully enjoyed Fellow Travelers the book and decided to give this one a whirl. What a wild ride. Loosely based on Dick’s real life career and murder, it gives a unique perspective into gay life in the 50s-60s.
I thought this was incredibly interesting, and the dual timeline was the best way to tell the story. The pianist Matt (also affectionally known as Papi or Daddy by his much younger partner Devin) was the perfect person to see the story through. The pin reminded me of “rosebud” and when you finally get to the significance at the end, you realize how much more wasteful the double murder was!! I also truly adored Matt’s daughter Laurie and would have loved to see her more!
That ending though 😭.
Ever heard of Dick Kallman? I hadn’t. I looked him up after I started reading, because I didn’t realize he was a real person.
I fully enjoyed Fellow Travelers the book and decided to give this one a whirl. What a wild ride. Loosely based on Dick’s real life career and murder, it gives a unique perspective into gay life in the 50s-60s.
I thought this was incredibly interesting, and the dual timeline was the best way to tell the story. The pianist Matt (also affectionally known as Papi or Daddy by his much younger partner Devin) was the perfect person to see the story through. The pin reminded me of “rosebud” and when you finally get to the significance at the end, you realize how much more wasteful the double murder was!! I also truly adored Matt’s daughter Laurie and would have loved to see her more!
That ending though 😭.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 15, 2023
Perhaps it's closer to 4.5 stars, but I'm rounding up because it appealed to my romanticism and to my love of 20th century pop culture history. In this case, an actor I had never heard of forms the basis for a fictionalized tale of rise and fall, triumph and jealousy, and all the resulting baggage and collateral damage. I actually began to enjoy the present day (early 80s) setting more than the alternating 50s/60s chapters...but in the end, everything in this book seemed designed to captivate me from the first page.
November 8, 2023
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
July 18, 2024
boring and hard to follow
November 11, 2024
Bad reviews were right.
Dull, unpleasant men doing
cruelly banal shit.
Dull, unpleasant men doing
cruelly banal shit.
August 25, 2023
Wildly entertaining historical fiction about the life, career, and grisly murder of Dick Kallman, an actor who seems to have kneecapped his own success by behaving monstrously (even toward the likes of superstars Dyan Cannon and Lucille Ball). Admittedly I’d be a sucker for any book where theater legends like Dolores Gray and Kenneth Nelson are characters, but this will probably appeal to anyone who likes to get lost in a good yarn: it’s as dishy as a celebrity memoir, the mystery of Kallman and his lover’s killing (and the murders’ connection to a strange little pin) has intrigue to spare, and the love story between two other men who inexplicably find romance in the “present-day” (1980’s) aftermath of the murders is surprisingly, immensely moving.
March 29, 2023
It's a horrible thing to say, but I like Dick Kallman better when he’s dead.
That’s partly because author Thomas Mallon has chosen to tell Kallman’s story from dual viewpoints, one in the first person, told by Dick’s occasional piano-accompanist Matt Liannetto; the other in third person, tracing Dick’s early promising career, followed by its eventual nosedive. Though the third-person sections are beautifully written, I prefer Matt’s quiet and modest voice. As a person, he reminds me of Tim Laughlin, a character in Mallon’s political novel Fellow Travelers (with a wink at Mallon’s larger corpus, Tim’s lover Hawk Fuller does a cameo in this novel, as a casual partner for Kallman).
Kallman, alas, is anything but quiet and modest. As soon as he enters a room he’s in your face, talking constantly about the great successes he’s recently had (always exaggerated) and the brilliant future he’s looking at, if you could just introduce him to that friend of yours, or put in a word with so and so. I used to know a politician like that, a state senator who, every time you met him (he was famous for this) asked you to do something for him. Don’t such people have a clue about how tiresome they get? Apparently not.
By an odd coincidence, I just read The Day of the Locust, Nathanael West’s Hollywood novel about the people who don’t make it, who go to Hollywood to find their dream and wind up as a hairdresser and part-time prostitute. The eventual rage of those people is something to behold. Kallman is not like that. He’s a genuinely talented person, for one thing, who got his start in the musical Seventeen (based on a Booth Tarkington novel) and went on to be a member of Lucille Ball’s Desilu Workshop, before getting his own sitcom, entitled Hank, about a young man who is illegally auditing classes at college and impersonating students who are missing, a funny premise that turned out not to be not terribly funny in its execution.
That could have been Kallman’s big break, but it turned out to be a bust, getting canceled after a single season (it ran opposite Wild Wild West, which probably doomed it from the start). By that time Kallman, with his world class abilities at name dropping and ass kissing, had started to wear everyone out, and a fair number of people were happy to see him fail. He moved on to the fashion industry (where his constant hype seemed to work) and finally the antique business, where he lived in an apartment that was a showcase for his wares.
He achieved notoriety at the end of his life (Gore Vidal would have called this a good career move) by getting murdered, apparently by one of his customers (this isn’t a spoiler; it happens in the first chapter). Our first-person narrator Matt, who knew Kallman through all his ups and downs (he was one of the pianists for Seventeen) was with him on the evening he died, and is an important material witness in finding his killer. Sections about Matt’s posthumous life alternate with the third person story of his career. I found those alternations a most effective way of telling the story. But I was always longing, just a little, to get back to Matt, because I liked him so much as a character, and because (like the story of Tim and Hawk in Fellow Travelers) his story gives us a glimpse of gay life in the early eighties.
As a good-looking young man in the world of entertainment, Kallman was always having to pretend he was straight, show supposed interest in attractive women, start rumors about possible engagements. In the meantime, there was all kinds of background patter about what was really going on and who was actually gay; a lot of that is most entertaining. One of my favorite moments was when he made a move on Lesley Gore as a possible date, and it turned out she liked girls. It’s her party and she’ll cry if she wants to. But it’s not Johnny she wants; it’s Judy, who—as we may remember—left at the same time.
Mallon is a political junkie of epic proportions, as he demonstrated in his three novels about Republican Presidents, also in Henry and Clara (about the young couple in Lincoln’s box on the night he was assassinated) and Dewey Defeats Truman, but I find, somewhat to my surprise, that he seems to know as much about the entertainment business as about politics. The sheer gossipy aspect of this novel is one of the most delightful things about it, at least for me. I kept thinking, how does he know all this stuff? I lived through exactly the same era and didn’t know any of it. The cameo appearances just don’t stop happening. I spent as much time googling people on my phone as I did reading the novel. He should do an annotated volume.
But I must say, finally, as much fun as the novel is, it’s a cautionary tale about ambition, and how people are never free of it. Almost no one in this novel is succeeding as they would like to, not Sophie Tucker (she takes solace in a cream puff), or Lucille Ball, or Dyan Cannon, talented and famous people. Toward the end of Kallman’s story, a singer named Dolores Gray becomes his business partner, and she absolutely cannot get enough attention; when she finishes talking about herself it’s time for you to talk about her, or she isn’t listening. She’s a successful person who is making herself miserable.
The exception to all that—hiding there in plain sight—is our narrator Matt, who enjoys his role in the background as a piano accompanist, always seems to have plenty of work, is happy when he finds a young lover who is good to him and wants to be with him, something poor Dick Kallman could never do (he wound up taking lovers who beat him up, as if life hadn’t done that already). Matt enjoyed his talent because he accepted it as it was, and wasn’t constantly trying to be greater. For me he’s the hero of this story. Kallman is a sad casualty.
www.davidguy.org
That’s partly because author Thomas Mallon has chosen to tell Kallman’s story from dual viewpoints, one in the first person, told by Dick’s occasional piano-accompanist Matt Liannetto; the other in third person, tracing Dick’s early promising career, followed by its eventual nosedive. Though the third-person sections are beautifully written, I prefer Matt’s quiet and modest voice. As a person, he reminds me of Tim Laughlin, a character in Mallon’s political novel Fellow Travelers (with a wink at Mallon’s larger corpus, Tim’s lover Hawk Fuller does a cameo in this novel, as a casual partner for Kallman).
Kallman, alas, is anything but quiet and modest. As soon as he enters a room he’s in your face, talking constantly about the great successes he’s recently had (always exaggerated) and the brilliant future he’s looking at, if you could just introduce him to that friend of yours, or put in a word with so and so. I used to know a politician like that, a state senator who, every time you met him (he was famous for this) asked you to do something for him. Don’t such people have a clue about how tiresome they get? Apparently not.
By an odd coincidence, I just read The Day of the Locust, Nathanael West’s Hollywood novel about the people who don’t make it, who go to Hollywood to find their dream and wind up as a hairdresser and part-time prostitute. The eventual rage of those people is something to behold. Kallman is not like that. He’s a genuinely talented person, for one thing, who got his start in the musical Seventeen (based on a Booth Tarkington novel) and went on to be a member of Lucille Ball’s Desilu Workshop, before getting his own sitcom, entitled Hank, about a young man who is illegally auditing classes at college and impersonating students who are missing, a funny premise that turned out not to be not terribly funny in its execution.
That could have been Kallman’s big break, but it turned out to be a bust, getting canceled after a single season (it ran opposite Wild Wild West, which probably doomed it from the start). By that time Kallman, with his world class abilities at name dropping and ass kissing, had started to wear everyone out, and a fair number of people were happy to see him fail. He moved on to the fashion industry (where his constant hype seemed to work) and finally the antique business, where he lived in an apartment that was a showcase for his wares.
He achieved notoriety at the end of his life (Gore Vidal would have called this a good career move) by getting murdered, apparently by one of his customers (this isn’t a spoiler; it happens in the first chapter). Our first-person narrator Matt, who knew Kallman through all his ups and downs (he was one of the pianists for Seventeen) was with him on the evening he died, and is an important material witness in finding his killer. Sections about Matt’s posthumous life alternate with the third person story of his career. I found those alternations a most effective way of telling the story. But I was always longing, just a little, to get back to Matt, because I liked him so much as a character, and because (like the story of Tim and Hawk in Fellow Travelers) his story gives us a glimpse of gay life in the early eighties.
As a good-looking young man in the world of entertainment, Kallman was always having to pretend he was straight, show supposed interest in attractive women, start rumors about possible engagements. In the meantime, there was all kinds of background patter about what was really going on and who was actually gay; a lot of that is most entertaining. One of my favorite moments was when he made a move on Lesley Gore as a possible date, and it turned out she liked girls. It’s her party and she’ll cry if she wants to. But it’s not Johnny she wants; it’s Judy, who—as we may remember—left at the same time.
Mallon is a political junkie of epic proportions, as he demonstrated in his three novels about Republican Presidents, also in Henry and Clara (about the young couple in Lincoln’s box on the night he was assassinated) and Dewey Defeats Truman, but I find, somewhat to my surprise, that he seems to know as much about the entertainment business as about politics. The sheer gossipy aspect of this novel is one of the most delightful things about it, at least for me. I kept thinking, how does he know all this stuff? I lived through exactly the same era and didn’t know any of it. The cameo appearances just don’t stop happening. I spent as much time googling people on my phone as I did reading the novel. He should do an annotated volume.
But I must say, finally, as much fun as the novel is, it’s a cautionary tale about ambition, and how people are never free of it. Almost no one in this novel is succeeding as they would like to, not Sophie Tucker (she takes solace in a cream puff), or Lucille Ball, or Dyan Cannon, talented and famous people. Toward the end of Kallman’s story, a singer named Dolores Gray becomes his business partner, and she absolutely cannot get enough attention; when she finishes talking about herself it’s time for you to talk about her, or she isn’t listening. She’s a successful person who is making herself miserable.
The exception to all that—hiding there in plain sight—is our narrator Matt, who enjoys his role in the background as a piano accompanist, always seems to have plenty of work, is happy when he finds a young lover who is good to him and wants to be with him, something poor Dick Kallman could never do (he wound up taking lovers who beat him up, as if life hadn’t done that already). Matt enjoyed his talent because he accepted it as it was, and wasn’t constantly trying to be greater. For me he’s the hero of this story. Kallman is a sad casualty.
www.davidguy.org
September 8, 2025
When antiques dealer and former TV star Richard Kallman and his partner were shot to death on Manhattan’s East Side on February 22, 1980, the circumstances were suspicious. Was it a robbery gone awry? Did Kallman know his killers? Did his penchant for exaggerating his wealth and success come to haunt him? Fortunately, as novelist Thomas Mallon surmises in “Up with the Sun,” his not so bright killers were found trying to cash in his bloodied antiques and art. They were tried, and one is still serving a life sentence. With a setting of backstage theatre and television production from the fifties to the eighties, Mallon’s historical novel uses this forgotten TV star (NBC’s situation comedy “Hank” lasting 26 episodes 1965-66) to look at how wealth and fame can just as easily destroy as save.
Well researched, “Up with the Sun,” is no mere exercise in nostalgia, though theatre buffs are bound to enjoy the backstabbing (Lucille Ball, Dyan Cannon) and self-promotion that stalled Kallman’s television and theatre careers. Kallman had enough inflated stories to make him “one of the greatest name-droppers ever.”
The novel runs on two tracks, one from Kallman’s perspective on his rise and fall, and the other from that of an old acquaintance, Broadway pianist Matt Liannetto, who was at the party at Kallman’s home the night of the murders. Matt’s track takes the reader through the aftermath of the murders and trials as he tries to get to the heart of why Kallman was killed. Matt studies an album of Kallman’s career for clues, noting a blank page: “It had been marked ‘1962’ by Dick himself, and left otherwise bare, sort of like the chapter called ‘My Marriage to Ernest Borgnine’ in Ethel Merman’s memoirs.” Matt’s investigating leads to revelations about Kallman’s long-term unrequited crush on an actor he met early in his career.
Kallman is not a character to like (nor does Mallone intent him to be), and his blindness to his faulty behavior makes for backhanded humor. When he gives a fulsome interview to “TV Guide” his agent reports: ‘Congratulations. You’re the first person in history to be the subject of a takedown profile in “TV Guide.’ “TV Guide” is well remembered for puff publicity pieces, so for the interviewer to start off the profile: “A lot of people don’t like Dick Kallman” shows the depth of the bad impression he made.
In the end, it is sad and surprising that there were so many suspects who wished bad luck for Dick Kallman, if not outright murder--unhappy television producers, angry fellow actors, duped art and antiques customers. It’s just as well that Mallon doesn’t bring up another coincidence that would have worried the police in February of 1980; the New York showing of William Friedkin’s film “Cruising” that led gay activists to worry about inspiring copycat murders. “Up with the Sun” (from a lyric to the theme song to “Hank”) makes for an entertaining book, but a sad life. As always, Mallon excels. Recommended.
Well researched, “Up with the Sun,” is no mere exercise in nostalgia, though theatre buffs are bound to enjoy the backstabbing (Lucille Ball, Dyan Cannon) and self-promotion that stalled Kallman’s television and theatre careers. Kallman had enough inflated stories to make him “one of the greatest name-droppers ever.”
The novel runs on two tracks, one from Kallman’s perspective on his rise and fall, and the other from that of an old acquaintance, Broadway pianist Matt Liannetto, who was at the party at Kallman’s home the night of the murders. Matt’s track takes the reader through the aftermath of the murders and trials as he tries to get to the heart of why Kallman was killed. Matt studies an album of Kallman’s career for clues, noting a blank page: “It had been marked ‘1962’ by Dick himself, and left otherwise bare, sort of like the chapter called ‘My Marriage to Ernest Borgnine’ in Ethel Merman’s memoirs.” Matt’s investigating leads to revelations about Kallman’s long-term unrequited crush on an actor he met early in his career.
Kallman is not a character to like (nor does Mallone intent him to be), and his blindness to his faulty behavior makes for backhanded humor. When he gives a fulsome interview to “TV Guide” his agent reports: ‘Congratulations. You’re the first person in history to be the subject of a takedown profile in “TV Guide.’ “TV Guide” is well remembered for puff publicity pieces, so for the interviewer to start off the profile: “A lot of people don’t like Dick Kallman” shows the depth of the bad impression he made.
In the end, it is sad and surprising that there were so many suspects who wished bad luck for Dick Kallman, if not outright murder--unhappy television producers, angry fellow actors, duped art and antiques customers. It’s just as well that Mallon doesn’t bring up another coincidence that would have worried the police in February of 1980; the New York showing of William Friedkin’s film “Cruising” that led gay activists to worry about inspiring copycat murders. “Up with the Sun” (from a lyric to the theme song to “Hank”) makes for an entertaining book, but a sad life. As always, Mallon excels. Recommended.
June 13, 2023
(4-1/2 stars really but I so rarely give 5 stars that I thought it probably deserves it) I feel like this was written for an audience of one, me, a gay man who grew up in the 60s and 70s, and was obsessed with TV, movies and theater. At the center is a fictionalized version of Dick Kallman, a forgotten actor who, despite having his own sitcom in the 60s (Hank, which I vaguely remember), never made it big, partly due to his own hubris and unlikability. Lots of real folks make appearances, from superstars like Johnny Carson and Lucille Ball to lower lights such as Kaye Ballard and Kenneth Nelson. Mallon creates the milieu of midcentury showbiz so well that I had no idea what celebrity qualities were real or fictional. In addition to Kallman, the other main celebrity character is Delores Gray, a singer and actress who, like Kallman, didn't hit the highest heights but came much closer--she is unforgettable in a couple of production numbers in the Gene Kelly musical It's Always Fair Weather. Mallon makes her somewhat unlikable, but really the only celebs he presents positively are Ballard and Robert Osborne (both of whom are listed in his acknowledgements page). The book masquerades as a crime story--as in real life, Kallman and his lover are murdered in a burglary gone bad--but the real heart of the book is a triangular relationship between Kallman, Nelson (who played the the main character in The Boys in the Band), and the narrator, a pianist named Matt, who is one of the few totally fictional characters in the book. Delores Gray is set up to be a kind of Nancy Drew figure to Matt's Hardy Boy but that relationship doesn't go in that direction (sadly)
Like Lawrence Osborne's On Java Road which I reviewed recently, this is a excellent example of that vanishing and hard-to-define genre of "midlist literary." It's thoughtful, well-written, and though it will never become a bestseller, it might have in the 1970s or 80s when midlist was commercially viable. I had a ball catching all the fairly obscure pop culture references, and though the true-crime aspect of the plot is on the weak side, the drama between the characters sustains the book for its entire length. Highly recommended.
Like Lawrence Osborne's On Java Road which I reviewed recently, this is a excellent example of that vanishing and hard-to-define genre of "midlist literary." It's thoughtful, well-written, and though it will never become a bestseller, it might have in the 1970s or 80s when midlist was commercially viable. I had a ball catching all the fairly obscure pop culture references, and though the true-crime aspect of the plot is on the weak side, the drama between the characters sustains the book for its entire length. Highly recommended.
October 22, 2024
TRUE AND FALSE, RICHLY BLENDED
So this is a true show business crime story in what some might characterize as the heyday of film and theater in the middle decades of the twentieth century. Dick Kallman was an aggressive aspirational, unlikable actor-singer who got his fifteen Andy Warhol minutes in the 1960s, but that's about it. (If you read this book, I recommend Googling him and reading his short bio). After thirty years of mostly secondary roles on stage and in film, never achieving the stardom to which he thought he was entitled, he gave up show business and took up a number of other business ventures in an attempt to secure his livelihood. The last was in a quasi-legitimate business dealing antiques when, in 1980, he was ostensibly robbed and murdered in his New York apartment along with his boyfriend, who unfortunately was also present at the time, collateral damage.
The book's first chapter details the events of the crime. In the second chapter, Mallon takes us back to the start of Kallman's effort to make it "big" in show business in the early 1950s. The chapters then alternate alternate between Kallman's post murder investigation and trial and his show business career and life up until his demise. The post murder chapters only cover the first years of the 1980s, while the biography of Kallman's life traverses three decades: 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Throughout these chapters it's a who's who of famous stars in entertainment world (Lucile Ball, Johnny Carson, Liza Minelli, and many more). Many of these relationships may very well have taken place, others likely not. There is, however, no record of what was really said in these interactions and Mallon, in an upfront disclaimer, states the dialogs come from his imagination. He is brilliant making them sound totally realistic and convincing!
Periodically, Mallon also references a historical event concurrent with the present time in which he's writing (McCarthy hearings, Cuban Missile Crisis, Watergate, Iran Contra, etc.). Since the second half of the 20th century is primarily my life too, these remembrances also contribute a sense of authenticity to the story.
The chapters which deal with the murders and subsequent investigation are narrated by a casual friend of Kallman's, an accompanist in the theater world who meets Kallman early in his career. This character likely isn't real, but through him Mallon writes a very believable narrative of the events that will finally bring the killers to justice. In the final chapters Mallon artfully brings the chapters of Kallman's life story to closure with the chapters involving his demise. We are left with a true crime story in the world of "show biz" that is compellingly told through Mallon's skillful writing.*
*Thomas Mallon is also the author of Fellow Travelers, a book read and also rated 5-stars. Now a historical miniseries starring Matt Bomer and Johnthan Baily.
So this is a true show business crime story in what some might characterize as the heyday of film and theater in the middle decades of the twentieth century. Dick Kallman was an aggressive aspirational, unlikable actor-singer who got his fifteen Andy Warhol minutes in the 1960s, but that's about it. (If you read this book, I recommend Googling him and reading his short bio). After thirty years of mostly secondary roles on stage and in film, never achieving the stardom to which he thought he was entitled, he gave up show business and took up a number of other business ventures in an attempt to secure his livelihood. The last was in a quasi-legitimate business dealing antiques when, in 1980, he was ostensibly robbed and murdered in his New York apartment along with his boyfriend, who unfortunately was also present at the time, collateral damage.
The book's first chapter details the events of the crime. In the second chapter, Mallon takes us back to the start of Kallman's effort to make it "big" in show business in the early 1950s. The chapters then alternate alternate between Kallman's post murder investigation and trial and his show business career and life up until his demise. The post murder chapters only cover the first years of the 1980s, while the biography of Kallman's life traverses three decades: 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Throughout these chapters it's a who's who of famous stars in entertainment world (Lucile Ball, Johnny Carson, Liza Minelli, and many more). Many of these relationships may very well have taken place, others likely not. There is, however, no record of what was really said in these interactions and Mallon, in an upfront disclaimer, states the dialogs come from his imagination. He is brilliant making them sound totally realistic and convincing!
Periodically, Mallon also references a historical event concurrent with the present time in which he's writing (McCarthy hearings, Cuban Missile Crisis, Watergate, Iran Contra, etc.). Since the second half of the 20th century is primarily my life too, these remembrances also contribute a sense of authenticity to the story.
The chapters which deal with the murders and subsequent investigation are narrated by a casual friend of Kallman's, an accompanist in the theater world who meets Kallman early in his career. This character likely isn't real, but through him Mallon writes a very believable narrative of the events that will finally bring the killers to justice. In the final chapters Mallon artfully brings the chapters of Kallman's life story to closure with the chapters involving his demise. We are left with a true crime story in the world of "show biz" that is compellingly told through Mallon's skillful writing.*
*Thomas Mallon is also the author of Fellow Travelers, a book read and also rated 5-stars. Now a historical miniseries starring Matt Bomer and Johnthan Baily.
June 19, 2024
On February 22, 1980, Richard "Dick" Kallman and his lover Steven Szladek were murdered in their Manhattan townhouse. Up With the Sun by Thomas Mallon is a fictional retelling of Dick's life and in the wake of his death, full of backstage Broadway and Hollywood gossip. It's told in two distinct modes and times. The first starts in the days leading up to Dick's murder, told in first person by Matt Liannetto, a pianist in Broadway orchestra pits who knew Dick way back when, and the aftermath as he gets drawn into the case as a witness and into Dick's life. The second, told in third person, starts in 1951 when Dick was supposed to get his big break in a flop Broadway musical. Dick's career had many close calls, being part of a Lucille Ball showcase, touring in the lead role in How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying (a part he's too perfect for), the title character in Hank, a one season NBC sitcom, but had never been able to parlay it into something more. His ambition and constant self-promotion turn off a lot of people. Matt is a generally nice guy that people like, the tonal opposite of Dick. Mallon doesn't really use the two as counterpoints, but the point is made. Mallon populates the story with plenty of cameos with A- and B-listers, all who are grappling, either successfully or fitfully, with their careers. At the center is a story of self-acceptance and how that plays out over careers (especially when the chosen career is all about being accepted enmasse). Dick is a striver, but Mallon shows what lies underneath that. It does not make his likeable, but it does make him human. And Matt is just a joy to spend time with. Ambition is not a dirty word, it's how its wielded that can make all the difference.
March 28, 2023
This book features two underwritten narratives centered on two underdeveloped characters . . . yet put them together, it creates what feels like a finished book. How exactly does that work?
Half the book is a speculative biography of Hank Kallman, a real-life minor celebrity and, if "Up With the Sun" is anywhere near accurate, world-class prick who was murdered during a botched robbery in 1980. The Kallman story, with its facile psychology and two-sentence expositions, reads exactly like a lame true-crime book. The other half of the book is the italicized first-person reminiscence of the fictional Matt Liannetto, a nice, moderately successful pianist who met Kallman when they were both young. The Liannetto segments are a bit amateurish, kind of like you'd imagine from a literate but inexperienced writer. To use two such conspicuously limited prose styles in the same book is a damned impressive achievement, really.
I was drawn to this book because I'm a sucker for seedy show-biz history, which Mr. Mallon offers in tasty bite-sized chunks. Natalie Wood, Rock Hudson, Sophie Tucker and myriad bygone greats make appearances in "Up With the Sun," not so much dropped names as totems of the cheap, sleazy glamor that fueled the 20th-century entertainment industry.
"Up With the Sun" could have been a lot longer and I'm kind of sorry it isn't, but there's plenty to admire in the form Mr. Mallon chose.
Half the book is a speculative biography of Hank Kallman, a real-life minor celebrity and, if "Up With the Sun" is anywhere near accurate, world-class prick who was murdered during a botched robbery in 1980. The Kallman story, with its facile psychology and two-sentence expositions, reads exactly like a lame true-crime book. The other half of the book is the italicized first-person reminiscence of the fictional Matt Liannetto, a nice, moderately successful pianist who met Kallman when they were both young. The Liannetto segments are a bit amateurish, kind of like you'd imagine from a literate but inexperienced writer. To use two such conspicuously limited prose styles in the same book is a damned impressive achievement, really.
I was drawn to this book because I'm a sucker for seedy show-biz history, which Mr. Mallon offers in tasty bite-sized chunks. Natalie Wood, Rock Hudson, Sophie Tucker and myriad bygone greats make appearances in "Up With the Sun," not so much dropped names as totems of the cheap, sleazy glamor that fueled the 20th-century entertainment industry.
"Up With the Sun" could have been a lot longer and I'm kind of sorry it isn't, but there's plenty to admire in the form Mr. Mallon chose.
April 7, 2023
Up With the Sun (Hardcover) - by Thomas Mallon
Dick Kallmsan (July 7, 1933, to February 22, 1980) was a Broadway actor and business entrepreneur who won several awards ( Teater World award for his performance in the Broadway musical Seventeen in 1951), lived and played the closeted gay life of a New Yorck City of the times. As his career waned, he develop an affinity for his other passion: antiques and art dealing with his partner Stephen (Steve) Szladek
They were murdered by three intruders in 1980 during a robbery of the art, antiques, and jewelry in their apartment on East seventy-seventh Street in NYC.
This is his story narrated from the first person point of view of his pianist and friend Matt Liannetto, interrupted by third person points of view of the artist himself. We see the full story of Dick’s life and death. Liannetto is a talented journeyman pianist, often on the fringes of Broadway history’s most important moments. He’s also a gay man who grew up in an era when that sort of information was closely held, and he struggles with accepting the rapid changes happening in the world around him.
There are too many characters that take away from the plot. The plot is boring and full of "name-dropping" which was at most times boring. It's not an easy read. It is a crime story, a showbiz story, a love story, and a story about a series of selected moments in the history of gay life in the post-war era.
Not recommended.
Dick Kallmsan (July 7, 1933, to February 22, 1980) was a Broadway actor and business entrepreneur who won several awards ( Teater World award for his performance in the Broadway musical Seventeen in 1951), lived and played the closeted gay life of a New Yorck City of the times. As his career waned, he develop an affinity for his other passion: antiques and art dealing with his partner Stephen (Steve) Szladek
They were murdered by three intruders in 1980 during a robbery of the art, antiques, and jewelry in their apartment on East seventy-seventh Street in NYC.
This is his story narrated from the first person point of view of his pianist and friend Matt Liannetto, interrupted by third person points of view of the artist himself. We see the full story of Dick’s life and death. Liannetto is a talented journeyman pianist, often on the fringes of Broadway history’s most important moments. He’s also a gay man who grew up in an era when that sort of information was closely held, and he struggles with accepting the rapid changes happening in the world around him.
There are too many characters that take away from the plot. The plot is boring and full of "name-dropping" which was at most times boring. It's not an easy read. It is a crime story, a showbiz story, a love story, and a story about a series of selected moments in the history of gay life in the post-war era.
Not recommended.
May 6, 2023
This book had me quickly pulling out my phone to look up whether or not a character was an actual person. It was astonishing to me how many people were real, and some of the details (Ted Hook's Backstage piano bar, e.g.) crept into my own memories. Initially, I didn't understand why Thomas Mallon wanted to write a novel about the very real murder of the very real Dick Kallman and his partner Stephen Szladek, but as I read into the book, I started to understand the interest. When I got to the last 50 pages or so, I didn't get up from where I was sitting. And it was cold and I was in a park and my body wanted to go home.
The narrator is a bit like the narrator of Gatsby, (Nick) -- somewhat involved in Dick's life as a pianist, but also somewhat removed. Matt, the narrator, has a certain horror and fascination with Kallman, and initially, because we're all trained to "like" the main character, it was bizarre to read a narrator who didn't like his subject. In Gatsby, Nick is envious, fascinated and possibly in love with Jay Gatsby. But this narrator is sad, disgusted, and might even hate Dick Kallman a little bit. But he's still fascinated.
Just a note: the book is written in 3rd person as well as 1st person. Sometimes the 3rd person narrator refers to the 1st person narrator of the other chapters. That can be confusing, but it's well done and by page 70 or 80, you get used to it. Overall, I loved this book.
The narrator is a bit like the narrator of Gatsby, (Nick) -- somewhat involved in Dick's life as a pianist, but also somewhat removed. Matt, the narrator, has a certain horror and fascination with Kallman, and initially, because we're all trained to "like" the main character, it was bizarre to read a narrator who didn't like his subject. In Gatsby, Nick is envious, fascinated and possibly in love with Jay Gatsby. But this narrator is sad, disgusted, and might even hate Dick Kallman a little bit. But he's still fascinated.
Just a note: the book is written in 3rd person as well as 1st person. Sometimes the 3rd person narrator refers to the 1st person narrator of the other chapters. That can be confusing, but it's well done and by page 70 or 80, you get used to it. Overall, I loved this book.
December 24, 2024
Mallon, author of such previous gems as Bandbox and Fellow Travelers, seems to be confusing writing with name-dropping lately. In his loosely connected Republican Apologist trilogy, the names are members of the Nixon, Reagan, and Bush 43 administrations. Here, the names are from show business in the 1950s-1970s. And while I appreciate that one of the names he drops is that of my own cousin, The Last of the Red Hot Mamas, Sophie Tucker, I know that most people these days have never heard of her, nor of many of the other players who come and go through this book.
The story centers around the life and murder of Dick Kallman, a never-star of stage and screen, who most people have also never heard of, and, harsh as it sounds to say this, probably won't care much about. Mallon portrays him as a shallow, callow, unethical, and more to the point for the main character of a novel, uninteresting.
The more interesting character is the purely fictional Matt Liannetto, who knew Dick sporadically through his acting career, and who was one of the last people to see him alive. Through him, we see the both the law and the order aspect of bringing Dick's killers to justice, which is somewhat compelling, in a macabre way. Matt himself is just a more interesting character, and I wish Mallon had just written a book about him, and made Dick Kallman a footnote to his story.
FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.
The story centers around the life and murder of Dick Kallman, a never-star of stage and screen, who most people have also never heard of, and, harsh as it sounds to say this, probably won't care much about. Mallon portrays him as a shallow, callow, unethical, and more to the point for the main character of a novel, uninteresting.
The more interesting character is the purely fictional Matt Liannetto, who knew Dick sporadically through his acting career, and who was one of the last people to see him alive. Through him, we see the both the law and the order aspect of bringing Dick's killers to justice, which is somewhat compelling, in a macabre way. Matt himself is just a more interesting character, and I wish Mallon had just written a book about him, and made Dick Kallman a footnote to his story.
FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.
May 30, 2023
This book was meticulously researched, but its attempt to stitch together celebrity history and crime fiction didn't work for me. The novel divides its attention between the semi-fictionalized biography and murder of Dick Kallman and the experiences and investigation of Matt Liannetto, fictional piano player and Kallman acquaintance.
The Liannetto sections are the best part of the book. His sections are written in first person and focus on the aftermath of the crime and Liannetto's romance with a man named Devin. I found these sections engaging and, after a while, hated having to slough through the Kallman sections to get them.
The Kallman sections are written in third person and have less personality. Kallman himself is not a sympathetic or likeable character and is interesting only by the company he keeps. These sections might be appealing to anyone interested in show business between the 50s and 70s, but if not interested in that, they are overly detailed and drag on.
A physical criticism of the book is that the typeface shifts between the Liannetto and Kallman sections. It's a weird decision given that each section is clearly labeled by date and has the 1st vs. 3rd person voice to differentiate them. It impacts the accessibility of the text, as the Liannetto sections feature text that seems smaller and thinner (and thereby, potentially more difficult to read).
The Liannetto sections are the best part of the book. His sections are written in first person and focus on the aftermath of the crime and Liannetto's romance with a man named Devin. I found these sections engaging and, after a while, hated having to slough through the Kallman sections to get them.
The Kallman sections are written in third person and have less personality. Kallman himself is not a sympathetic or likeable character and is interesting only by the company he keeps. These sections might be appealing to anyone interested in show business between the 50s and 70s, but if not interested in that, they are overly detailed and drag on.
A physical criticism of the book is that the typeface shifts between the Liannetto and Kallman sections. It's a weird decision given that each section is clearly labeled by date and has the 1st vs. 3rd person voice to differentiate them. It impacts the accessibility of the text, as the Liannetto sections feature text that seems smaller and thinner (and thereby, potentially more difficult to read).
July 25, 2023
There is one truly odd thing about this excellent novel. Inasmuch as this novel is a tightrope act of style, I’m going to say that this odd thing was the author’s choice: whenever the New Yorkers in this book talk about a street corner, they put the street first and the avenue second. Maybe it’s not unheard of, but it’s rare. Someone from New York doesn’t say “Eighth and Forty-Fifth.” They say “Forty-Fifth and Eighth.” But Thomas Mallon has them saying it “Eighth and Forty-Fifth.” (I took a picture of the page that’s on, just so I’d have it at hand.) Various street corners in New York are mentioned by the characters, and they are always in the form I’ve just described. Mallon has to know this is the reverse order of what anybody who lives in New York says. He meticulously researches his books. This signifies something. Maybe it’s because this is a story of reversals.
If, like me, you like stories of reversals, you’ll like UP WITH THE SUN. There is a MAD MEN effect throughout. If you lived through the decades this book covers, you’ll know the landmarks Mallon shows you and you’ll know WHY they’re there. But because Thomas Mallon is interested in social dynamics, the drama remains compelling to the end.
If, like me, you like stories of reversals, you’ll like UP WITH THE SUN. There is a MAD MEN effect throughout. If you lived through the decades this book covers, you’ll know the landmarks Mallon shows you and you’ll know WHY they’re there. But because Thomas Mallon is interested in social dynamics, the drama remains compelling to the end.
January 22, 2024
For me, it didn’t work to have two separate gay story lines in different time periods competing with each other. The two narratives were connected by the tragic murder of Dick Kallman and his boyfriend in 1980, but Lianetto’s narrative of the murder trial is just a pale reflection of the life and times of Kallman, not its equal. The book itself is self-consciously historical throughout, as if the narratives were written first and then embellished with headlines from the period.
No disrespect to Mallon, who is a world-class author, but what could another writer have done with the same subject matter? I keep thinking of Truman Capote’s treatment of the 1959 murder of the Clutter family in Kansas that became In Cold Blood, published to great fanfare in 1966 and dramatized repeatedly in the decades since then. To me, Mallon’s incidental character, Jimmy Ingrassia, was way more compelling than either Matt Lianetto or his boyfriend Devin Arroyo. Back to the story board?
This review is not an endorsement of amazon.com or any business owned by Jeff Bezos. Books for my reviews were checked out from a public library, purchased from a local brick-and-mortar book shop, or ordered from my favorite website for rare and out-of-print books.
No disrespect to Mallon, who is a world-class author, but what could another writer have done with the same subject matter? I keep thinking of Truman Capote’s treatment of the 1959 murder of the Clutter family in Kansas that became In Cold Blood, published to great fanfare in 1966 and dramatized repeatedly in the decades since then. To me, Mallon’s incidental character, Jimmy Ingrassia, was way more compelling than either Matt Lianetto or his boyfriend Devin Arroyo. Back to the story board?
This review is not an endorsement of amazon.com or any business owned by Jeff Bezos. Books for my reviews were checked out from a public library, purchased from a local brick-and-mortar book shop, or ordered from my favorite website for rare and out-of-print books.
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