The acrobat

Delaney (The Big Impossible) serves up a splendid fictional biography of Cary Grant, charting the film star's path toward an "endless conundrum of fame." Each chapter is framed with an episode of Grant's 1959 LSD treatment at the Psychiatric Institute of Beverly Hills, with which his doctor intends to help Grant separate his consciousness from the subconscious and open the doors of perception. The arc of Grant's life goes from rags to crisp shirts, razor-creased suits, and calfskin shoes while the actor struggles with being "desperately unhappy" from a damaged childhood, a skyrocketing career, and several strangling marriages. Along the way, celebrity cameos abound--an epiphanic moment playing shuffleboard at 16 with Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford during an Atlantic crossing; being penniless and taken in at 22 during a New York City snowstorm by future Oscar-winning costume designer Jack Orry-Kelly; private and professional alliances with confidantes Howard Hughes, Randolph Scott, Tony Curtis; working with Blake Edwards and Alfred Hitchcock. Delaney vividly captures the intoxicating and toxic fumes of Hollywood, where "egos go to be crushed," and presents an alluring amalgam of fact and fiction. Breezy and entertaining, Delaney's portrait perfectly befits the glamour and fakery of his subject. (Nov.)

Imagination meets biography in this novel about Cary Grant. Young Archibald Alec Leach grows up a poor young lad in Bristol, England, with a father who drinks too much and a mother who suddenly and permanently disappears. He joins the Pender Troupe at age 14, working stage lights at the Hippodrome. When he comes to America, he quickly earns money by stilt walking and running a brief scam. Throughout much of the story the narrator calls him the Acrobat, and Leach himself may not know who he really is. He's incredibly handsome and fit for the movies. "The stage had only edged him up by inches," the narrator writes, "but the movies paintbrushed him across the sky." With his cleft chin and aren't-you-glad-I'm-here smile, he is an instant hit on the big screen. There are those nasty rumors, of course, spawned by "the execrable" gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. What's this about him living with a man? Doesn't he like women? So on the advice of a producer, he finds a wife so they don't think he's "queer," but she doesn't stay around long, and he eventually marries five times, with multiple extramarital tumbles in between. He likes women, all right, and men aren't so bad either. The story moves back and forth in time, often with the aid of a psychiatrist's couch and prescribed LSD, a "wonderful medication." So who is this man, balanced on stilts and tumbling through life, landing on his feet, and dazzling with his grin? It can't be Archibald Leach--that name falls flat. How about Cary Lockwood? Nah, too many syllables. How about Cary Grant? Yes, that will do. But his persona is a mask covering the insecurities and pain of his youth; he could easily have become like his hard-drinking father who pressed clothes for a living. Grant's life is not the happily-ever-after film where hero and heroine kiss as the credits roll. Instead he is alone and frightened, desperate to be seen, to be heard, to be loved. On a journey with no destination, the Acrobat tumbles on. A beautifully imagined, sympathetic portrait of a flawed icon. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.