jocelynw's review against another edition
3.0
A good beginning, terribly disappointing ending. Also:
- broke actors didn't own answering machines in 1974
- most vehicles didn't have back up beeps then - they only started getting phased in in 1970
- messing around with sweet cocktails and calling them martinis didn't happen until the 1990s
- people were not making mix tapes in 1974
- Tofu Pups weren't introduced until 1985
- while Polaroid begin selling the kind of camera that spits out the picture in fall 1973, the idea that a broke actor would have one within the year seems unlikely
- having studied there in the 1990s, Circle in the Square was referred to without an article
- while he might have ogled women, Sanford Meisner was gay.
Valerie Martin is old enough to know firsthand about these anachronisms.
- broke actors didn't own answering machines in 1974
- most vehicles didn't have back up beeps then - they only started getting phased in in 1970
- messing around with sweet cocktails and calling them martinis didn't happen until the 1990s
- people were not making mix tapes in 1974
- Tofu Pups weren't introduced until 1985
- while Polaroid begin selling the kind of camera that spits out the picture in fall 1973, the idea that a broke actor would have one within the year seems unlikely
- having studied there in the 1990s, Circle in the Square was referred to without an article
- while he might have ogled women, Sanford Meisner was gay.
Valerie Martin is old enough to know firsthand about these anachronisms.
jonid's review against another edition
3.0
A book that does a terrific job of describing what goes on in the heads of actors and provides insight into the behind-the-scene life of auditions Although it takes place in the 70's - it reads like a british send-up and the characters do not speak like people in thier 20's did in the 70's that I remember. AI liked it but thought the characters sounded more like characters in a dated play than contemporary thesipians in NYC
caitlinxmartin's review
5.0
What a wonderful treat this book is! I tend to forget [a:Valerie Martin|10493|Valerie Martin|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]. On the one hand, this means that I end up missing her novels. On the other hand, I get to rediscover her often which sort of fulfills my fantasies of re-reading various books & authors for the first time all over again.
I spent most of my twenties & thirties in theaters. First as an actor & later as a director with my own production company. Acting was fun because it provided me with an opportunity to explore sides of myself that I tended to avoid & to do things I'd probably never ever do in my real life. Directing, however, was my ultimate love in the theater. Where else do you get to interrogate text prior to making it get up and walk around?
[b:The Confessions of Edward Day|6426472|The Confessions of Edward Day A Novel|Valerie Martin|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/413z4jrpCLL._SL75_.jpg|6615830] is the memoir of Edward Day, an actor reminiscing about his salad days in the New York theater world of the 1970s where everyone was a student of Stella Adler or Sanford Meisner & living hand-to-mouth from audition to audition waiting for that big break. Edward Day is the definitive actor, a narcissist whose self-awareness is so thin that he can't see himself. Edward stands so far outside himself in observation of his emotions as material for his acting that he is essentially a non-person. Scarily, he is in many ways the most complete person in this tale of doubling & its consequences.
Ms. Martin is asking some big questions here: What is owed to someone who saves your life? What does it mean to be both an actor & a person? If you have a doppleganger, which one of you is real?
Ms. Martin's writing is, as always, superb. She manages to create characters who suck you into their worlds. She writes with a delicate menace that is reminiscent of [a:Patricia Highsmith|7622|Patricia Highsmith|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1217411179p2/7622.jpg], but less bound to the thriller genre. This is a wonderfully written, compelling story that ended far too soon.
I spent most of my twenties & thirties in theaters. First as an actor & later as a director with my own production company. Acting was fun because it provided me with an opportunity to explore sides of myself that I tended to avoid & to do things I'd probably never ever do in my real life. Directing, however, was my ultimate love in the theater. Where else do you get to interrogate text prior to making it get up and walk around?
[b:The Confessions of Edward Day|6426472|The Confessions of Edward Day A Novel|Valerie Martin|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/413z4jrpCLL._SL75_.jpg|6615830] is the memoir of Edward Day, an actor reminiscing about his salad days in the New York theater world of the 1970s where everyone was a student of Stella Adler or Sanford Meisner & living hand-to-mouth from audition to audition waiting for that big break. Edward Day is the definitive actor, a narcissist whose self-awareness is so thin that he can't see himself. Edward stands so far outside himself in observation of his emotions as material for his acting that he is essentially a non-person. Scarily, he is in many ways the most complete person in this tale of doubling & its consequences.
Ms. Martin is asking some big questions here: What is owed to someone who saves your life? What does it mean to be both an actor & a person? If you have a doppleganger, which one of you is real?
Ms. Martin's writing is, as always, superb. She manages to create characters who suck you into their worlds. She writes with a delicate menace that is reminiscent of [a:Patricia Highsmith|7622|Patricia Highsmith|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1217411179p2/7622.jpg], but less bound to the thriller genre. This is a wonderfully written, compelling story that ended far too soon.
an_enthusiastic_reader's review
3.0
This novel was not as engaging or rich as Valerie Martin's Trespass, and because of the comparison, this has colored my rating. (If we had half stars, I would have bumped it up.) It's about an actor's maturation, and the unlikely story of his anmity with his literary double after said adversary saves Edward's life. I never felt completely engaged in the book's psychology. Instead, it was a light tread through a shallow stream, not unpleasant but mostly unmemorable.
lindseymarkel's review
2.0
My grad school adviser recommended this book to me after reading a short story I wrote about community theatre actors. I liked the story itself, but I found basically all of the characters at basically every moment to be as insufferable as the most insufferable "theatre kids"--painfully self-absorbed and filled with a strangling sense of self-importance.
Side note: I can't retain the title of this book for the life of me. I've had to Google the name every single time I've wanted to mention it to anyone (including the week or so when I was in the middle of reading it). That just can't be a good sign, right?
Side note: I can't retain the title of this book for the life of me. I've had to Google the name every single time I've wanted to mention it to anyone (including the week or so when I was in the middle of reading it). That just can't be a good sign, right?
avitalgadcykman's review against another edition
5.0
A great study of an actor's mind, or, dare I say, soul. Margaret Atwood said that Valerie Martin is a favorite writer, so I read her, and now I agree that she's very good. It is a page-turner, and there's a feel that the acting life may drug -up or down- even the reader.
scherzo's review
4.0
It's hard to be grateful to Valerie Martin for so accurately capturing the voice and spirit of such an egressiously selfish narrator.
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