UNDER THE INFLUENCE by Joyce Maynard ***

This was intriguing (for me) only for the fact the writer used to write about her home life for the Concord Monitor in NH. She screwed her way into JD Salinger's life -I'm sure long enough to piss off his wife all the while (I'm sure) thinking of herself as a young female temptress of a retiring, shy man who had little use for her interference. Then she wrote about it, doesn't believe in kiss and not tell.

Most people don't see her actions that way. They are mostly disappointed in her fame-fucking & bragging. She doesn't believe in keeping things to herself.  She was looking for an easy piece of ass to boost her career and since she wrote about her tryst and sells books, I'd say she was a successful fucker.

This novel isn't a mystery. It's about some dumb bunny Helen with a kid (Ollie-horrid name) who drinks away her child in a divorce then goes to AA and falls in with the wrong type of people. Wealthy getchu-anything-honey type of people. Then she finds out they're fake. WOW biggie news story there. O hell ya, rich people don't really GAS about the peons in the world. Surprise!! Pretty much nothing goes on at all during this story. Not a thing worth reading.

So this was disappointing. No murder, no excitement whatsoever. Even the accident was a let down here I was suspecting child rape but nope. Even Helen's boyfriend Elliot is steadfastly boring and she finds herself attracted to that at the end. Boring is now her middle name and life in general- all good wishes from Joyce, it must be how she sees other people.

And BTW the book wasn't all that and a bag of chips. I would get it at the library or not even bother. Watch the movie To Die For instead. Much better story about murder and it had some amusing on screen moments. Unknown if she wrote the movie script but the book wasn't all that wonderful for me either. When I read her stuff I feel her arrogance, her disdain for most of the characters in her stories-which I translate to people IRL. That may be why I'm not crazy about her writing style.