Silent Novels: The Good and The Bad

I'm currently trying to find the will to finish up my Valentino novel "Conversations with Rodolfo". For a writer I sure go in spurts (as FTT can attest)... Its near done, just some flourishes. I think it will be quite good.

When I started the novel I decided to read other silent based novels to see what narrative they took. I had the storyline, and I wanted to make it like an interview...but I don't write fiction much so some help was needed. There have been 4 books and 1 play released to this effect, and unfortunately I've only made it through 2 (Sunnyside is on the list I promise!) And the two novels I think show the best and worst of taking a historical figure and writing a fiction around them. Ironically the worst is the highest recommend...cant figure that one out.


The Good: The Biograph Girl by William J. Mann

For 25 cents on amazon you can get a copy of this novel...which considering its as thick as an Iowan phonebook is quite mind boggling. The novel asks the question: what if Florence Lawrence faked her death and was actually alive in 1997? Frankly the Spice Girls reference made my day.

I'm not sure how much I liked the actual narrative...it flipped between the present, the 1930s, and the 1910s. Very randomly, though it was trying to build to a point. Spoilers ahead: in the novel Florence's roommate kills herself, and Florence so gone in obscurity is able to convince a doctor she is in love with to say its her. She then lives her life, eventually ending up in a retirement home in New York (or somewhere near it). A feisty old broad she's witty and the light of the home, and 2 dueling brothers find her and her story and exploit it for their own use (one a writer, the other a director).

I like the fanciful events about what would happen if indeed Florence Lawrence had made it until 1997. BUT I didn't like the other characters. The girlfriend was a needy skank, the director brother reminds me of the worst of men I have ever met, and the gay brother seems like an attempt at being edgy. They become less annoying towards the end of the present narrative but I still don't like em. The nun was okay...but she was very annoying in her stupidity. End most spoilers.

What I really liked about this novel was I think it presented its story wonderfully: obviously in a novel you can make up anything you want...look at that trash Hollywood's Silent Closet. You could say Charlie Chaplin married Tom Mix and gave birth to Nita Naldi if you wanted...any crazy or offensive thing you could imagine. But personally I think when mixing a real story in with an imagined one its imperative to be faithful to the factual part. It doesn't necessarily detract from a novel, in fact I feel it explains it even better (to write a story like this one you would have to have an understanding of Florence Lawrence to appreciate it).

In that way Mann was very thorough: released about the time Kelly Brown's biography of Florence came out it matches all the facts as best it can. Sure some things are exaggerated a bit for creative license (her second marriage, her 1930s life) but nothing is mean, nothing is slanderous. You come away liking the real and imagined Florence. Definitely one of the better such novels out there. Click here to purchase.


The Bad: I, Fatty: A Novel by Jerry Stahl

Well amazon agrees with me: this one is going for a penny! Several times I've had this novel highly recommended to me. People swear its true and factual to a fault. It has 4 and a half stars on amazon and not too long ago I seen it featured in a Santa Monica Barnes and Noble as recommended reading.

Then I read it. And was horribly disappointed. I read it in the same way I read Florence's: I read the biography first, then the novel. Frame Up is the best Fatty Arbuckle biography out there...and its not even that good. Not so slanderous, but not very accurate either. To go off of that and then make THIS piece of garbage...well.

The worst part is Jerry Stahl has proclaimed (from the opening of the book to all his lectures and promotions) that this is 'FACTUAL' mixed in with a narrative. Apparently Johnny Depp (who wanted to do a Fatty Arbuckle film) swore it was THE book on Roscoe. Mr. Depp is sorely mistaken and thankfully it seems that movie idea has fallen through.

The narrative isn't as jumpy as the Florence book, but its not that mind blowing either. According to the preface its an imagine biography/interview session between Roscoe and his Asian maid/dope dealer towards the end of his life. Frankly it read more to me like "Frame Up...with additions to make it first person". Literally for the first 60 pages it goes that way...Frame Up only now told by Fatty himself. But there were signs some things were seriously wrong...things that made my blood boil.

The very first sentence of the book is about how Roscoe's father hated him for in essence breaking his mother's 'flower' or vagina to be so crass. I should have stopped there, but I let it go being fiction and all. True his father did seem to hate him to no end; but the way Stahl imagines and flourishes with factual events is down right disgusting. Another such flourish: his drunken father parades a young Roscoe around nude in front of the neighbors making fun of his happy area. When Mann put creative flourishes they did not insult Florence or her story. When Stahl did it...it was down right nasty and perverse. Another: his description of Roscoe and Minta's sexual life. Minta was supposedly interviewed at some point, but she was gone by the time this piece of trash came out. It does follow the Frame Up mode of a non existent sex life; but the way Stahl flourishes it again leaves you feeling dirty and insulted.

Still only mildly offended I kept reading. It got to the chapter about him, Mabel, Mack, and Charlie. Mack gets it the worst, and Stahl has Mabel as a coke head 3 years before she started having her troubles. Then small things go wrong: he tells the Adela (re: unreliable ala Perez Hilton) version of Mabel and Mack's break up, and then he gets Charlie's tramp creation wrong. Not insulting, but weird things to get wrong in a book claiming to be heavily researched and factual despite being a novel.

After that point, several chapters in, I feared the worst and flipped towards the infamous party night...the night Roscoe would be accused of raping Virginia Rappe. Stahl follows the standard story close enough...(with all due respect to Joan I can only tell the version of the tale out there as is) Virginia gets drunk, ends up sick in the bathroom, and then Roscoe is alone with her very briefly and tries to help her out. His embellishments and conclusions make me want to slap him ala Kenneth Anger.

According to I, Fatty Virginia is sick in the bathroom, covered in vomit (possible surely if she was indeed sick in the bathroom). Roscoe tries to help her and takes her to the bed. Virginia is writhing in pain saying she's dying and needs help. Roscoe tries to see if shes faking by taking an icy BOTTLE of champagne and putting it well...her happy area (why does recounting this book make me, such an obscene foul mouthed little heathen feel so unclean?) AND while doing so Roscoe is having racing thoughts...Stahl has spent the whole book telling us how Roscoe has no sexual interest at all (this syncs up with Frame Up) and NOW he has Roscoe saying how for the first time in his life, this writhing woman covered in vomit and rife with disease (so the narrative goes) is SEXY to him?!?!?!?!? SERIOUSLY?!

Now...surely a naked woman could be quite alluring especially when left alone. One writhing in pain and covered in vomit would not be quite ideal. The official story has it that when Roscoe laid her on the bed Virginia kept tearing at her clothes, and to see if she was faking he placed ice on her stomach or thigh (something Buster Keaton supposedly taught him). There was no champagne or coke bottle...that was a Kenneth Anger styled rumor before he was even born.

I stopped right there and immediately put the book in my return pile. Jerry Stahl should be shot. Its one thing to write a terrible novel and slander people, its another to go around claiming its FACTUAL while slandering people. For the record Frame Up had the standard version of events, Stahl added his own perverse embellishments.


Others

I hear Sunnyside is quite good, but I cant officially say it until I read it. China Doll by Elizabeth Wong is a small play based on the life of Anna May Wong. There is also the recently released children's novel Shining Star the Anna May Wong Story by Paula Yoo and Lin Wang. Sadly there's not many more novels out there; and the silent world is quite rife with inspiration.

As for my own as I was working on The Rudolph Valentino Society site a thought kept popping in my head, "What if Rudy had lived longer?" What with the death festival and the icon status it seems as if that's the question...what did we miss? I decided I'd make him an old man, alive until 2005. So I wrote that story out...and now I just have to format it a bit. Originally it was supposed to be a short story for our festival anthology (which will have several silent film based stories) but now its too long for that. Originally I was just going to tell the fictional story, the 1926 and after story. But now that it will be its own book I decided to add the factual part as well. And I guarantee it will not go all I, Fatty. I'm pretty sure it will be out by the end of the year. Hopefully I wont have to sell it for a penny!