Up With the Sun
A novel
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- € 8,99
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A WASHINGTON POST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • Through the curious life of Dick Kallman—a real-life celebrity striver, poisonously charming actor, and eventual murder victim—the unforgiving worlds of postwar showbiz and down-low gay sexuality are thrown into stark relief in this “page-turning blast” (James Ellroy, author of Widespread Panic)
"Engrossing…[A] keen portrait of 1980s New York…a pensive, often gorgeous depiction of…gay life in Manhattan before Stonewall and life on the cusp of the AIDS epidemic." —The Washington Post
Dick Kallman was an up-and-coming actor in the fifties and sixties—until he wasn’t. A costar on Broadway, a member of Lucille Ball’s historic Desilu workshop, and finally a primetime TV actor, Dick had hustled to get his big break. But just as soon as his star began to rise, his roles began to dry up and he faded from the spotlight, his name out of tabloids and newspapers until his sensational murder in 1980.
Through the eyes of his occasional pianist and longtime acquaintance Matt Liannetto, a tenderhearted but wry observer often on the fringes of Broadway’s big moments, Kallman’s life and death come into appallingly sharp focus. The actor’s yearslong, unrequited love for a fellow performer brings out a competitive, vindictive edge in him. Whenever a new door opens, Kallman rushes unwittingly to close it. Even as he walks over other people, he can never get out of his own way.
As Matt pores over the life of this handsome could-have-been, Up With the Sun re-creates the brassy, sometimes brutal world that shaped Kallman, capturing his collisions with not only Lucille Ball, but an array of stars from Sophie Tucker to Judy Garland and Johnny Carson. Part crime story, part showbiz history, and part love story, this is a crackling novel about personal demons and dangerously suppressed passions that spans thirty years of gay life—the whole tumultuous era from the Kinsey Report through Stonewall and, finally, AIDS.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mallon's sparkling latest (afterWatergate) draws inspiration from real-life actor Dick Kallman's career on Broadway and television and his 1980 murder. A pianist named Matt Liannetto, who first met Dick while working on the 1951 Broadway musical Seventeen, provides the narration. Matt had dinner at Dick's in 1980, the night Dick and his partner, Steven, were killed during a botched robbery. Alternating chapters describe the actor's career. The "aggressively ingratiating" Dick opens for comic singer Sophie Tucker (who gets in a few good lines); works with Lucille Ball, who has the manipulative and bombastic Dick's number; and stars in the touring company for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, which leads to his ill-fated TV series, Hank. After Seventeen star Kenneth Nelson rejects Dick's advances, Dick's decade-long obsession with Kenneth drives the story. Meanwhile, Matt goes to identify a murder suspect in a "vocal lineup," where he meets and becomes romantically involved with Devin Arroyo, who works with the police. Mallon finds a natural sweetness in his depiction of Matt and Devin's relationship as the trial and its aftermath unfold—a nice contrast to Dick's unpleasant story. Peppering the juicy drama of Dick's ambition and unrequited love with pop cultural references, as well as cameos from Dyan Cannon and Kaye Ballard, Mallon creates a fascinating, page-turning tale. Readers will be swept off their feet.
