Walter Winchell: A Novel

By Michael Herr

Book Overview

A streamlined hybrid of novel and screenplay, Walter Winchell tells the story of the failed vaudevillian who became this country's most influential gossip columnist and wizard of the vicarious. Brilliant . . . full of punchy dialogue, colorful people and places and period movie devices . . . Herr's hybrid is perfect.--Chicago Tribune.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679733930
• ISBN13: 9780679733935
• Release Date: August 1991
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 157 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 0.5" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Fast-paced, funny, & touching.

Herr calls it prose fiction, & it's funny & fast paced; Herr seems to be parodying the very people he's writing about. Winchell spoke & wrote (Larry King's USA Today "column" is a 3d-rate parody of Winchell), & Runyon & Hemingway wrote the way this book reads. Who needs 500-page researched biographies? It's almost all dialogue, quips, & jokes. And where else can you discover that Hemingway nailed Josephine Baker?

Unputdownable!

Michael Herr, author of the incredible 'Dispatches', again takes on the challenge of altering the nature of narrative, and creates a new type of book, part screen play, part novel. Amazing character development. I had hardly heard of Walter Wenchall before I read this. It's amazing that a figure of this magnatude could become a forgotten footnote in our culture. Rush should read this.