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THE WINTER OF HER DISCONTENT
by Katherine Miller Haines
Harper, June 2008
336 pages
$13.95
ISBN: 0061139807


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

I don't know how else to say it but I think Kathryn Miller Haines would have been far happier writing a non-fiction look at the effect that World War II had on Broadway, theater, actors, and how they supported the war effort. The most interesting parts of this book felt to me like the really cool stuff you find while researching and just can't file it away. (Says the woman who kept her thesis notes for at least 15 years after she graduated)

Haines spends a very long time, more than once, telling us about the Stage Door Canteen, from the rules to the performers, from its purpose to what it was like to go there. Page and pages. While it was interesting, it went on, frankly, way too long and finally, I got it.

The murder plot is weak in this trade paperback, a novel which is not her first book, though it reads like one. The story doesn't make a whole lot of sense from the get-go, when Rosie Winter is hired on to appear in a show despite her serious inability to dance. Even during wartime, there are lots of out of work hoofers hanging out in New York, so it seemed clear, at least to me, from the start that either there is a "hidden agenda" or that someone is trying to ensure the show will fail.

While Rosie gets some of that, it goes on for too long and well, hell, we know this story, at least in a broader sense, since producing a Broadway flop is the theme of "The Producers."

Haines also tries to convince the reader that actors are self-centered and spend every day talking and thinking about themselves. This said, it doesn't help endear me to Rosie. The scene where she decides that since she can't sleep, she's not about to allow her roommate to sleep just about did it for me. Selfish and rude, and not a bit funny. Rosie does occasionally try to apologize for her behavior, but she clearly believes it's okay to be obnoxious and demanding. She's an actress after all. Oh, dear. I don't buy the "sensitive artist" routine. There were some interesting or clever threads, like Rosie's missing ex-boyfriend and how folks got around government censors in their letters, but there wasn't enough follow-through to make it work.

The strength in this book lies with the author's love of the era and the place. She delights in telling us about living with rationing, dating men who are heading off to war the next day, and how patriotism suffused theater and all forms of behavior. There's more than one crime thread in the story, but they all seemed to take a backseat to the descriptions and portrayals of life in New York during the war. If I'd liked Rosie better, maybe I would have been more interested. I just want more out of my books than this book offered.

Reviewed by Andi Shechter, July 2008

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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