A really bad book
The Devil's Candy is a bad book by Julie Salamon. It's been praised for years. I have to believe a lot of the praise is by people who didn't read it.
It's had three printings, by the way. It's original and then in 2001 on the 20th anniversary and then on the 30th.
Why is that an issue?
I'm sorry if you're reprinting garbage maybe it's too much for you to read it?
Is that it?
Is that the excuse for all the factual errors?
The book is about turning Thomas Wolfe's racist book The Bonfire of the Vanities into a film. Brian de Palma is the director. The cast includes Tom Hanks, Melanie Griffith, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman and Kim Catrall.
Early on, it's feared that Melanie Griffith is too old -- at 33 -- to play Tom Hanks' mistress. Tom was 34 at the time. But there's a push to give the part to Uma Thurman -- then 20 years old -- before filming starts.
Bad writer Julie Salamon tells us Uma was hot off her film debut in Dangerous Liaisons.
Do you see the problem?
Because no one's bothered to correct it. Three reprintings over 30 years.
Uma Thurman first film was Kiss Daddy Goodnight. She made two other films before she made Dangerous Liaisons -- making DL her fourth film -- not, as Julie types -- her film debut.
There are errors like that on one page after another. Gross factual errors on page after page.
Again, did the people who praised this crapfest over the years actually read it?
Here's a passage from the bad book:
But when the book was published and became an instant literary and sociological phenomenon, a great many people wanted to find a through line. Suddenly Bonfire seemed very desirable. Still, nothing happened. No one could completely overcome his or her doubts—not until Peter Guber read the book in late autumn of 1987 and put in a call to Jeff Berg, chairman of Wolfe’s literary agency, International Creative Management.
The book was published, Salamon types, and was a success but "still nothing happened" and wouldn't happen "until Peter Guber read the book in late autumn of 1987."
Wow. What a long, long wait.
The publisher shows the release date to be November 1, 1987. The New York Times reviewed it October 13, 1987.
Late autumn? That's generally considered to be November. "Still, nothing happened." Weeks after the book's published and then makes the best seller list is not a great length of time.
But facts don't matter to this author.
It's a boring book, it's a book with non-stop factual errors and -- Rebecca's zooming in on this -- it's a very sexist book.
We're
both posting right now. A second or two after this goes up, I'm adding
a link here to Rebecca's review. Okay, Rebecca's "julie salamon is a sexist b**ch who owes melanie griffith an apology" and it's an epic. You'll enjoy it, be sure to read it.