Bandbox [Paperback]

The plot fits into several genre, the most prominent being a madcap screwball and the other being somewhat of a minor mystery - will the competition succeed in shutting down Bandbox? Mallon makes deft use of every character, even though there are easily more than a dozen to keep track of, and each fits very, very neatly into the plot. That's incredibly hard to pull off and if the book wobbles a little bit in some sections, it makes up for it in others.

Mallon captures the romance of the city and the era vividly, from the socio-political events to the popular culture to the love affair that writers had and continue to have with New York. Even though we know via history's events what's coming around the corner for these characters, we care about them enough to want them to avoid the hard times and root for them against the "bad guys".

Jehosaphat "Joe" Harris is the editor of Bandbox and he seems like a combination of Harvey Weinstein and Boss Tweed. He's fighting to save his magazine from the upstart Cutaway, edited by his onetime protege Jimmy Gordon. Jimmy, who will stop at nothing to bury Bandbox, appears to have the upper hand. The suspense as to who will emerge victorious is an excellent attention-grabber as situations and circumstances get more and more out of control.

The funny thing about the book is that some of the characters and situations are cliches of the 20's, but we're so used to them they don't feel like cliches. Mallon manipulates our perceptions and stereotypes to do his job for him, which is a very clever move. It's also interesting that in reading it I couldn't help but think of what kind of film it would make. Some of the parts are ridiculously easy to cast in the imagination. Alec Baldwin, for example, is the epitome of Jimmy Gordon.

One flaw, and I've noticed this in other novels that are similar to this one, is that there is so much going on in some instances the author foreshadows what's coming a little too blatantly which takes some of the fun away from the big moments when they do occur. This is a minor criticism - it's like watching a movie when you've seen all the cliches and you know one is coming. It's probably not going to detract from the overall experience but you remember it for not being on the same level as the rest of the material.

The book reads very smoothly - probably a good two days at most - and leaves you wanting more. Thomas Mallon is going on my list of authors whose other work I am interested in reading.

With BANDBOX, Mallon tackles the 1920s, and the book's vertiginous velocity, keystone-kop commotions and clever contrivances certainly capture the roar of that decade. The title refers to a men's fashion magazine headed by Jehoshaphat "Joe" Harris, an aging editor who once famously turned the formerly failing rag around in one business quarter. Now he faces crazed competition from his former protégé, Jimmy Gordon, who has jumped ship to Cutaway, a prestigious Condé Nast upstart.

A boisterous brouhaha brews around this bitter brawl between big cheeses as Mallon deploys the entire Bandbox masthead --- from the managing editor all the way down to the lowly fact-checker --- to shadow stories in New York and California, to rake muck on rivals and to try to stay one, no, two steps ahead of the competition.

In Harris's inner circle are Norman Spilkes, the rag's skittish managing editor, and David Fine, the sadsack wine-and-dine columnist with the unlimited expense account. Stuart Newman, the cake eater who writes the bachelor life column and beds all the new girls, is fighting alcohol and his curious attraction to Nan O'Grady, the bug-eyed Betty copy editor. Her assistant, Allen Case, is a real case: he's an ardent animal lover who won't eat meat and resents Gardiner Arinopoulos's use of pythons and koalas in photo shoots with head model Waldo Lindstrom, "an omnisexual cocaine addict" with a hushed-up criminal record.

At least Nan doesn't work in the fact-checking department with Chip Brzezinski, a real Palooka who's hoping to secure a place on the Cutaway masthead by spying for Jimmy Gordon. But he's loyal to his boss, the Countess Daisy DiDonna, a social butterfly who's looking to settle down with the right man --- "right" meaning one who has money, prestige and power.

Covering the lowly vaudeville circuit is Aloysius "Cuddles" Houlihan, a veritable cautionary tale against burnout. He used to be a real up-and-comer, but he's all washed up these days. The only thing he can muster now is a pathetically moony look at his secretary, a choice piece of calico named Becky Walter, who craves the frenzied life of real writers but is held back by a wet-blanket boyfriend studying Scottish Chaucerians.

It's a considerably colossal cast of characters, but as they scheme and scam to save their jobs, Mallon juggles them all with vaudevillian aplomb. They play off each other dynamically, moving the plot half by their own wayward motivations and half by sheer happenstance: miscues, misunderstandings, miscalculations, miscommunications, misleads and misdeeds.

In fact, BANDBOX is often so much fun to read that it feels frothy and frivolous. This tone, however, is more a nod to the hubbub of Prohibition-era New York; this tonic has a strong bite. Mallon slyly suggests that the titular magazine is a fictional precursor to present-day lad mags like Maxim, Stuff and FHM that explode with scantily clad starlets and salacious sex columns. This implication is revealing: our cravings for love and sex, glamour and adoration, power and prestige, drugs and alcohol --- among so many other vices --- are nothing new, but rather conditions of simply being human. In this and many other ways, Mallon fashions the past to comment subtly but meaningfully on the present and, as with his previous novels, he does so with style and flair to spare.

--- Reviewed by Stephen M. Deusner