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A review by susannah_n
Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines, Hollywood's First Openly Gay Star by William J. Mann
2.0
Updated 11/26/14: Finished this audiobook yesterday in a marathon session (while housecleaning), and I'm glad to be done with it. This book had tremendous potential, but William Haines as a subject just did not hold up for a 400+ page book. Too many unknowns, too much uncertainty, way too many assumptions.
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I'm giving up on this one for a while. The entire production of this (audio)book is mediocre at best. While I am very interested in early Hollywood, so little is actually known about William Haines that the book's author is forced to make assumptions continually. I don't think I've ever seen (heard) the words/phrases "perhaps," "one can assume," "it would seem that," and all variations used this much in a work of nonfiction. Further, the narrator of the audiobook struggles with name pronunciations (e.g., King Vidor's name is pronounced both "Vee-door" [correct] and "Vee-der"), which I found to be off-putting. I would like to finish listening to it eventually, but I need a break.
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I'm giving up on this one for a while. The entire production of this (audio)book is mediocre at best. While I am very interested in early Hollywood, so little is actually known about William Haines that the book's author is forced to make assumptions continually. I don't think I've ever seen (heard) the words/phrases "perhaps," "one can assume," "it would seem that," and all variations used this much in a work of nonfiction. Further, the narrator of the audiobook struggles with name pronunciations (e.g., King Vidor's name is pronounced both "Vee-door" [correct] and "Vee-der"), which I found to be off-putting. I would like to finish listening to it eventually, but I need a break.