Jewelry Talks: A Novel Thesis

By Richard Klein

Book Overview

Campy, bitchy, outrageous, and quite a bit more than over the top, Abby Zinzo describes himself as "a cross between Auntie Mame and Louis the Sun King." Abby has lived a life dedicated to pleasure, and nothing has given him more pleasure than owning, wearing, or merely contemplating the lustrous objects with which women and men have always adorned themselves. In this sexy, funny book that is part novel and part thesis on jewelry, Abby sits down to record everything he has learned over a lifetime, planning to leave this story along with his collection of valuable stones to his beloved niece, Zeem. He recounts the history of famous gems-like the fabulous Koh-i-Noor and the brilliant blue Hope diamond-and regales us with naughty tales of the women who made the beautiful jewelry their own, including Coco Chanel, the Duchess of Windsor, and Elizabeth Taylor. He also narrates his own sensational life, from Harvard undergraduate to dancer in a notorious Paris drag cabaret to his twilight as a man for whom gender is just another glittering ornament. Sharp, fascinating, and sparkling with its own inner fire, Jewelry Talks is precious gem in and of itself.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679758496
• ISBN13: 9780679758495
• Release Date: July 2002
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

The meaning of jewelry

The narrator of this odd and compelling story is by turns wise, funny, catty, obnoxious, and downright fascinated by celebrity gossip. He's savvy regarding semiotics and the arcana (and meanings) of unconventional sexuality. Fashion, money, and French and German literature and philosophy are important, too. There are discussions of death and customs around it, and suicide, too. You will learn more about gems and jewelry than you might have imagined possible (including just why size really does matter, and in the world of gems, what it says about the giver and the wearer). There are hundreds of topics in this story that Klein somehow exhilaratingly ties together, including tattooing and piercing. The narrator has chosen an heir in "Zeem," a young woman who will inherit his amazing trove of jewels. He doesn't know her, but he has plenty to tell her, in a variety of registers. He's by turns a fast-talking New Yorker, sometimes professorial, and sometimes almost naïve. He can be efficient and technical, and sometimes he writes with a luminous clarity and beauty. He talks about his personal sexual history, crossdressing, and the worlds of the transgendered - and jewelry and more jewelry.There's a good variety of methods used (fiction, the essay, and a lot of direct quotation from other sources) to discuss famous women, famous jewelry, theories of gender, sexuality, love, language, style, and money - along with gossip, innuendo, and a lot of information (factual and/or prejudiced) about gems and adornment, and erotics - to make an assortment of points. There's an attention to detail that is sometimes a pleasure, and sometimes (as when discussing each of Elizabeth Taylor's husbands) tedious. This story is much more than a catalogue of great jewelry and is never less than strangely interesting.