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Summary
Summary
The bestselling status (and subsequent blockbuster film adaptations) of "Bridget Jones's Diary" and "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" is proof of the enduring strength of this category. Although the novel is invented, Robinson is a successful Hollywood producer whose credits include "Braveheart" and "Last Orders."
Author Notes
Independent film producer, screenwriter and author Elisabeth Robinson grew up in a Detroit suburb. She studied philosophy and economics at Oberlin College. She began her film career in New York, where she scouted books to make into movies. Her film credits include Braveheart and Last Orders. Her first novel is The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters, which is based on her sister's battle with leukemia. Her sister Laurie died in 1998. She currently lives in New York.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Hollywood and leukemia are the two unlikely poles of this wrenching, tragicomic first novel by independent producer and screenwriter Robinson. Pouring out her troubles in epistolary form, 34-year-old Olivia Hunt, a struggling film producer, chronicles a year of dizzying highs and devastating lows. As the novel begins, she receives news that her younger sister, Madeline, recently married and happily settled in the sisters' Ohio hometown, has been diagnosed with leukemia. Olivia herself is at loose ends, trying to jump-start her career by putting together a big-budget production of Don Quixote. Impatient, ambitious and often caustic, Olivia is very different from her big-hearted, big-haired sister, and as she flies back and forth between California and Ohio, she reflects on the choices she has made in long, searching letters to friends and family. Though she and her ex-boyfriend Michael, a painter living in New Mexico, are still in love with each other, they are both too devoted to their careers to settle down together. Just as it seems things might be patched up between them, Don Quixote swings into high gear and Olivia heads off to film in Spain. Her Hollywood adventures are pitch-perfect and hilarious, with Robin Williams ("like a beaver in a sweatshirt and jeans") and Jerry Bruckheimer, among others, making cameos. No less impressive is Robinson's unsentimental chronicling of the progress of Maddie's illness and the alternately heroic and selfish reactions of those around her, including the sisters' mother, an anxious children's book writer, and their father, a retired attorney and alcoholic. Olivia's cynicism, compassion and loyalty come through as funny, real and inspiring, and the novel's epistolary format is smoothly employed. Moving but never maudlin, this is an accomplished debut.(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
It's bright, it's clever, and it's going to be a major hit: a smashing success with the press and the public. Movie producer Robinson's semi-autobiographical debut about a Hollywood movie producer whose sister Ohio gets leukemia is already garnering press as the women's tearjerker of 2004. And understandably so. Olivia, 34, is struggling unsuccessfully to produce a film adaptation of Don Quixote and contemplating the happier aspects of suicide when she receives word that her younger, newly married sister Maddie has been diagnosed with leukemia. Through Olivia's letters--to her parents; best friend Tina and her ex- but still-loved boyfriend Michael; even to big-name Hollywood celebrities she wants involved in her film--we follow the ups and downs of Maddie's illness as well as the ups and downs of Olivia's career and love-life. The very studio that fired Olivia only a short time earlier agrees to produce Quixote, and Olivia's movie ambitions take off. From Hollywood and from locations in Europe, she travels back and forth to Shawnee Falls to be with her family, and the contrasts and connections between the two worlds lie at the novel's heart. In Ohio, Olivia witnesses her reticent mother and alcoholic father's long marriage in a new light. Maddie herself is down-to-earth and spunky throughout her treatments, side-effects, false hope of remissions, and ultimate downward spiral. Her religious husband is a rock. Michael, a painter who is handsome and wonderful but wants her to live with him in New Mexico, visits and beckons Olivia back, but her ambition resists. Meanwhile, Hollywood politics turn ugly, but despite a slight bout of craziness when she steals the car of her nemesis and drives it into the ocean, Olivia perseveres. She hires a new, handsome director. Don Quixote, starring Robin Williams (bound to make a cameo in the film adaptation) opens to good reviews if not great numbers. Maddie dies gracefully, leaving behind a legacy of love. "You'll laugh, you'll cry": Robinson is enormously skilled at pushing the emotional buttons, but an aftertaste of manipulation lingers. There's also something self-serving about the writing, something frankly very Hollywood about it. But will it sell? Is there balm in Gilead? Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Robinson mixes Hollywood politics and sisterly affection in her moving, engaging debut novel. Olivia Hunt is trying to make it as a producer in Hollywood, but it's not going well. She's working with an extremely difficult director on a version of Don Quixote that somehow must be true to the book and commercially appealing. Things get much, much worse when Olivia learns that her younger sister, Maddie, has been diagnosed with leukemia. Maddie has chosen a very different life than Olivia; she's happily married and still living in the Ohio town they grew up in. Maddie is young and strong, and Olivia is determined to be upbeat for her sister, and herself. When the studio she used to work for (and was fired from) picks up the Quixote film, and Robin Williams and John Cleese sign on to star in it, Olivia's star appears to be ascendant. She also seems to have a shot at winning back Michael, the handsome ex-boyfriend she can't seem to leave behind. But when Maddie takes a turn for the worse and the movie hits a stumbling block, Olivia must be the strong one for her family, and somehow keep her movie afloat. Sparkling with humor and beauty, the novel is ultimately a testament to the bond between the sisters, and the strength of both Olivia and Maddie. KristineHuntley.
Library Journal Review
This epistolary tale by a screenwriter/producer takes readers inside two complex worlds: the contemporary movie business and the mind of Olivia Hunt, a single filmmaker negotiating major life changes. Unemployed and abandoned by a longtime lover, Olivia is desperately pulling career strings when she receives tragic news from her hometown. Shawnee Falls, OH, has meant family stability, where parents and younger sister Madeleine maintain traditions and treasure memories (the book's title refers to linked stories Olivia created for Maddie throughout childhood). Now, Maddie's leukemia diagnosis has shattered the happy routine. Olivia must assume the unaccustomed role of family manager just as her screenplay goes into production, and she finds herself literally flying between Hollywood glitz and the devastation of cancer. The tragicomic story unfolds in a series of lively letters written by Olivia to friends, family, and business associates between visits to Midwestern hospitals, West Coast meetings, and European film sets. Anyone who has juggled competing obligations of the heart will appreciate the dilemmas depicted in this admirable debut novel.-Starr E. Smith, Fairfax Cty. P.L., VA(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.