REVIEW

                 REVIEW

    This summer I read a very interesting book called "A Stranger in the Mirror" by Sidney Sheldon. The book was published by "Grand Central Publishing", New York. The first paperback printing of this book was in 1977. To tell the truth, though the book is unabridged, it was easy for me to read it.
    It was very easy for me actually to select this very particular book for summer reading - there were two reasons: Sidney Sheldon is very famous and popular author and practically all of his books were bestsellers (and some of them still remain).
    Sidney Sheldon was born on February 11, 1917 and died on January 30, 2007. During his life he wrote 19 novels, 8 of them were filmed. It is interesting to mention that "A Stranger in the Mirror" was his 3rd book. Speaking about his biography I can tell you that he was born in Chicago. During the Depression, he worked at a variety of jobs, and after graduating from Denver East High School, he attended Northwestern University and contributed short plays to drama groups. In 1937 Sheldon moved to Hollywood, California, where he reviewed scripts of films. In 1969, Sheldon wrote his first novel, The Naked Face, which earned him a nomination for the Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America in the category of Best First Novel. He was married for 30 years to Jorja Curtright, who died of heart attack in 1985. After that he remarried Alexandra Kostoff, a former child actress. His daughter, Mary Sheldon, became a novelist as well. Sheldon died on January 30, 2010 from complications arising from pneumonia at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, California. Due to international statistics, he is the sixth best selling writer of all time.
    In my opinion, it is very hard to define the actual genre of this book for almost all genres mixed in a single volume. I can certainly say that it is drama with elements of adventures, a bit thriller and a bit "biography" of invented character. This is the quote from the Internet: "The novel tells the life story of two fictitious Hollywood celebrities - Toby Temple and Jill Castle, portrays the emotional extremes of success and failure and how people inevitably become victims of time."
    As it is said in the quote, the action mostly takes place in Hollywood, few chapters in different states of America and a little bit in Europe. The time of the action takes place in 20th century, from the birth of main character in 1920 till the death of his wife, fictitious date is not mentioned.
    As for me, I liked the plot very much, it was very interesting, briskly developing, dramatic and exciting. In brief, the story tells us about two parallel lives of a man and a woman. Each of them starts his career from nothing, from complete zero. Each of them rises to the most successfull moment of their life, they meet, spent a few weeks with each other and their lives began to return from a completely positive result back to zero. Toby Temple, son of a butcher, ran to Hollywood away from the girl he made pregnant and her father policemen. In Hollywood he starts from being nobody but while the time is going he is getting more succesfull and successfull in career of comic. Josephine Czinsky was a Polish girl that grew up with no father but a mather who believes in God with the tenacity of the fanatic. Because of one stupid misunderstanding situation she got her heart broken and ran away to Hollywood too, changing her name to Jill Castle. She was desperate to get work in Hollywood just for her talent and began to break into show business through the bed. Although it was not best practice, the outcome was obvious - she became involved into the Hollywood business. Once Toby Temple and Jill Castle met, fell in love and married. But Toby, the greatest comic of all time, became paralyzed. At the same time Jill discovered that her old love was in Hollywood to tell her that he still loved Josephine and that she ran away only because of silly misunderstanding. Jill falls in love for the second time but she cannot leave Toby untill he will be dead. So she desides to murder him and drowns him in the pool. Everything seems to be good for Jill, she was returning to her old love but suddenly her old love called David found out the way how Jill came to success - sleeping with practically everyone in the town - and leaves her. Jill was alone. During the cruise she saw the face of drowned Toby Temple inviting her to join him and she drowned herself in the sea.
    Such is the plot. It is obvious that the narrator is the author himself. The main characters are Josephine Czinsky or Jill Castle and Toby Temple. It is interesting to mention that the characters of our heroes are unstable - they are changing from good, ambitious, happy to bad, cunning and sophisticated like the character of Dorian Gray that changed globally after Basil made his portrait.
    Speaking about the themes that are developed in this book I can say that the author is trying to tell us to be satisfied with the things we already have and not try to get something better than we have by all means. Josephine got a very good and loving husband Toby but she also wanted love of David. Between two stools one falls to the ground.
    I would like to recommend you to read this book due to its impressive plot, great storyline, realistic characters and unbelieveable ending.

"Great reading.... A novel of betrayal, greed, suspense and romance. It is a true page-turner."   - Nashville Banner on Doomsday Conspiracy.