I picked up Frank Langella’s collection of essays at the recommendation for Jeffrey Tambor. He also recommended Bruce Springsteen’s memoir and that was phenomenal. I feel like Dropped Names would be phenomenal to someone my dad’s age, but I found it a big boring. Most of his stories are decades old and include people I’ve never heard of which made them less impactful.
This is essentially a more high brow version of Kathy Griffin’s Celebrity Run-Ins but my sphere of knowledge is more similar to Kathy’s than Frank’s…
The most interesting stories involved Jackie Kennedy and Bunny Mellon; Liz Taylor’s mention is pretty good too. Perhaps because I had prior knowledge about them they were inherently more interesting or perhaps, they simply were the more interesting subjects he’s come across. With the exception of Bunny, all of Frank’s subjects are dead, which I suppose is more respectful, but automatically excludes anyone he has recently encountered, people who I imagine I’d be more familiar with and more entertained by.
Oh, and Frank was kind of a ho.
Crossing my fingers that the next book I pick up with reinvigorate my reading, I can’t talk another spree of lack luster literature!