Dorothy Parker Drank Here by Ellen Meister– 336 pages
Book Blurb:
Heavenly peace? No, thank you. Dorothy Parker would rather wander the famous halls of the Algonquin Hotel, drink in hand, searching for someone, anyone, who will keep her company on this side of eternity.
After forty years she thinks she’s found the perfect candidate in Ted Shriver, a brilliant literary voice of the 1970s, silenced early in a promising career by a devastating plagiarism scandal. Now a prickly recluse, he hides away in the old hotel slowly dying of cancer, which he refuses to treat. If she can just convince him to sign the infamous guestbook of Percy Coates, Dorothy Parker might be able to persuade the jaded writer to spurn the white light with her. Ted, however, might be the only person living or dead who’s more stubborn than Parker, and he rejects her proposal outright.
When a young, ambitious TV producer, Norah Wolfe, enters the hotel in search of Ted Shriver, Parker sees another opportunity to get what she wants. Instead, she and Norah manage to uncover such startling secrets about Ted’s past that the future changes for all of them.
My Review: 3 stars
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How could I resist this title? It’s perfect and so was the infamous Dorothy Parker in her time. This book was a quirky and witty fictionalized tale of Dorothy Parker as she, in ghost form, inhabits the Algonquin Hotel in New York, her old stomping ground. The story revolves around Dorothy as she helps a young woman reestablish her once successful career while also aiding a famous author clear his name from a plagiarism scandal. Of course these two people are connected, unbeknownst to one of them, and Dorothy helps bring that to fruition as well.
Any book that leads me to learn something new is always a plus for me and in this novel, there was plenty to discover. Not only did I find out more about Dorothy Parker’s writings and her sassy quotes, but also about the legendary “Round Table” of authors, critics and playwrights that dined at the Algonquin every day for ten years.
Had this story had a ghost other than Ms. Parker, it probably wouldn’t have worked. It was her wit and sarcasm that kept you wanting to read more. This is a perfect vacation read…light and fun!
Quotes I liked:
Pornography doesn’t bother me. Mrs. Parker said. There are other things far more obscene – war, politics, the discretion of the English language.”
-“If people changed, I’d be impressed. Gadgets merely mark the inevitable march of progress.”
-“Are drunk and happy mutually exclusive?” –“Life and happy are mutually exclusive.”
-“When I finish with a book, I’m done. There is no more than what I wrote. You know as much as about what happens outside those pages as I do.”
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