Elaine May, Carl Hiaasen, Hellsing: Pajiba July 2024 Book Recommendations Superpost!

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Books | August 5, 2024 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Books | August 5, 2024 |

Miss May Does Not Exist by Carrie Courogen

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Carrie Courogen (@carriecourogen)

It took far too long for Elaine May to get her dues. Yes, she’s a Tony and Grammy winner, an Oscar nominee, and an undisputed legend of stage and screen, but for a huge chunk of her career, she was seen as a has-been, a fountain of lost potential, and the director of one of Hollywood’s most legendary flops. At the age of 92, her legacy seems more secure than ever, thanks to an honourary Academy Award, a Criterion release, and countless critical reassessments. Helping to cement her legend is Carrie Courogen’s biography of May.

Written entirely without the private May’s involvement, Miss May Does Not Exist hopes to fill in the gaps of Hollywood history where not only May was erased but the entire concept of the female genius. And May is indeed a genius. Courogen’s book details her obsessive attention to getting every line just right and her refusal to coast on her early success when she and Mike Nichols became the toast of the New York comedy scene. Her desire for total control in an industry that hates to give it to anyone, much less women, hindered her growth but, as Courogen argues, would May even be May if she conceded and moved to the middle ground?

Courogen’s tone is informative and a little fangirlish, her eager enthusiasm for May’s work emanating from the page. It reminded me of Hollywood’s Eve, Lili Anolik’s biography-cum-love letter to Eve Babitz, although Courogen is savvy enough to pull back when the occasion calls for it. She doesn’t lavish praise on every May project, noting when her trademark uncompromising wit was softened to the detriment of the story (hello, Primary Colors) or her old school sensibilities clashed with modern tastes, like some of the more bad taste gay jokes and use of the F word in The Birdcage.

An entire life is covered here, although May’s penchant for making sh*t up about her life (the title is a reference to her old Playbill bio) cannot help but cloud some details. It’s exciting to read about her struggles getting films like Ishtar and Mikey and Nicky (my personal favourite of hers) made, as well as learn about how she found new power in the film world as a sought-after script doctor for projects like Tootsie. Reading about her process makes for the best parts of the entire biography. It falters when it simply runs out of things to talk about. The finale 25 years of her life and career get condensed into one section, mostly because she hasn’t done a lot of work since then but Courogen needs to complete her life. The writer is in a bind, trying to create a fully layered portrait of someone who has long rejected that prospect and whose career is too weird to neatly fit such boundaries. Still, the lion’s share of Miss May Does Not Exist is fascinating and admiring of someone who more than deserves our praise. She’d hate to hear you adore her, of course.

Also, Ishtar is good, okay?

Relic/Reliquary by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Douglas Preston (@douglaspreston6)

Have you ever been sitting in your bedroom, looking through the literal hundreds of unread books that fill every corner of the space for something to read, and been struck by a hyper-specific literary craving? This happens to me a lot, but when I found myself in the mood for an action adventure with monsters and hot weirdo heroes, I wasn’t sure it was an itch that could be scratched. Blessed be to the library for proving me wrong.

How can you say no to an exceedingly long series where the lead character is called Aloysius Penderghast, and he’s described as looking like an albino Benedict Cumberbatch with the accent of Foghorn Leghorn? How was I supposed to resist a saga that starts off with a mutated lizard monster killing people in the Natural History Museum in New York? And apparently later in the series we get time travel?! I am simply too seated.

Relic, the first book out of 23 (and counting), is basically what would happen if Dan Brown’s books were, you know, good. They’re well-written, full of action and weird historical and scientific details that are just plausible enough, and the obvious self-insert hero isn’t as dull as dishwater. Is Penderghast a little too perfect? Sure, but he’s also so effing odd that you can forgive it (another fictional cop I’ll make an exception for in my ACAB rule.) These books are 100% designed to be read by your dad on a long-haul flight but they’re also entirely my jam. I’m sure I’ll read a lot more of them when I’m hankering for something smartly stupid.

Hellsing by Kohta Hirano

It should surprise literally nobody that I’m back on my vampire bullsh*t. Not that I ever got off it, of course, but with the third season of Interview with the Vampire currently a glint in Lestat’s eye, I’ve been looking for ways to plug the gap. A friend got me the first chapter of Hellsing for my birthday, and it seemed like a good time to check out one of my major blind spots in vampire fiction.

You know that feeling you get when you check out a piece of pop culture as an adult and realize that, had you read/seen/listened to it as a teenager, it would have become your entire personality? That’s me with Hellsing. I can already see how I would have behaved in the LiveJournal groups and all the ways I would have embarrassed myself by engaging in the Discourse. Perhaps it’s for the best that I didn’t get there until I was 34.

The Hellsing Institute is a secret organization dedicated to defending Queen and country from monsters. Their greatest warrior is a ravenous, gun-toting vampire of legendary abilities named Alucard (get it?!) But do you know what’s scarier than vampires? Nazi vampires. Yes, it’s that kind of manga. Say what you want about Hellsing but it knows exactly what it is: pure excessive mayhem. The violence and fight scenes are so pornographically over-the-top that they become funny. The token hot lady vampire, Seras Victoria, is drawn with breasts so bulbous and gravity-defying that I’m not sure Hirano-san has ever actually met a woman. He knows writers who use subtext and believes they’re all cowards. The entire thing is 100% style over substance but I can’t deny that I’m having a total blast reading it. Sometimes, you just need some good old-fashioned mayhem. And vampires. Your move, Lestat.

Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen

Andrew Yancy is a former police detective in the Florida Keys who has been busted down to health inspector after being caught shoving a vacuum cleaner up the rectum of his girlfriend’s husband. Desperate to get back on the force, he decides to investigate the strange case of a severed arm found floating off the coast. Everyone thinks it’s merely a tragic accident but Yancy falls into a bizarre case of extortion, Medicare fraud, voodoo, and a monkey actor who was fired from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise for getting his seed all over the actors’ wigs.

If you’re familiar with the work of Carl Hiaasen, all of this will sound pretty standard to you. The king of Florida crime comedies, Hiaasen is best known for his stories of eccentrics and sleaze in the Sunshine State (and also a really fun YA novel about owls.) I’d never read any of his adult fiction, and with Bad Monkey now the stuff of an Apple TV+ adaptation starring Vince Vaughn, this seemed like a good opportunity to jump on board. And I enjoyed myself. I laughed out loud on more than one occasion. Hiaasen has a keen eye for the surrealness of his home state but also a noted outrage over the corruption and exploitation that seems embedded in its beaches. A subplot about rich white dudes taking over a Black resident’s property against his wishes is, from what I understand, typical Hiaasen (although all of his and the voodoo queen’s dialogue being written phonetically didn’t work for me at all.) It’s both sharply drawn and proudly crude, which made it a fun way to pass the time.