A review by kerryanndunn
Good Stuff: A Reminiscence of My Father, Cary Grant by Jennifer Grant

3.0

I don't know how I feel about this book. Ms. Grant just isn't a very good writer. Her reminiscences are repetitive, convoluted, random, and too glowing. I always wondered why Cary Grant stopped acting after 1966's Walk Don't Run and now I know. When his daughter was born he chose to devote his entire life to her and he archived practically every moment of her life in an almost creepily obsessive way. I was hoping she would tell some stories of Cary that he told her about all his years in Hollywood, but no. Apparently they only lived in the present and she never learned about his life before her. So weird. The one thing about this book I did like was the picture of L.A. it painted. It was a little time capsule of 70s/80s Los Angeles: Madame Wu's Garden, Hollywood Park, Malibu Colony, Brentwood Country Mart. Rather wonderful. I give this book three stars for that aspect, for the bit of illumination of Cary's last 20 years of life, and for the photos and letters and transcripts of live recordings from their life together as father/daughter. But it loses two stars for the jumbled writing, the creep factor, and the lack of anything penetrating or deep about her father.