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    Any Resemblance to Actual Persons: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Any Resemblance to Actual Persons: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Any Resemblance to Actual Persons: A Novel
    Ebook270 pages4 hours

    Any Resemblance to Actual Persons: A Novel

    By Kevin Allardice

    1.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    “Mix Nabokov’s Pale Fire with James Ellroy’s The Black Dahlia” for an anarchic comic novel by a Donald Barthelme Prize-winning author (Jim Krusoe).
     
    English professor Paul McWeeney’s sister has written a book accusing their late father of murdering Elizabeth Short in the notorious unsolved Black Dahlia case of 1947. Paul has every right to be outraged. It’s based on the highly questionable memories her therapist has allegedly helped her to recover. Or imagine. In penning a furious cease and desist letter to the publishers, Paul hopes to refute his sister’s outlandish claims. With a wildly divergent recollection of their Hollywood childhood, Paul begins to make his case in defense of their father’s name and legacy.
     
    But Paul, a failed novelist, soon finds himself on an obsessive, consuming, elliptical exploration of both his family’s history and his own conflicted memory, threatening his relationships with those closest to him. The letter becomes not the intended refutation but rather a disturbing and wildly comical psychological self-portrait of a man caught between two increasingly unstable versions of the past.
     
    “By turns broad and sly, and occasionally, shocking” (Booklist), Any Resemblance to Actual Persons “sneaks a highly personal story into the near-mythic world of the Black Dahlia case. Allardice gets all the details right, from the scarily plausible explanation of the crime to the dark shadows of literary obsession and familial dysfunction to the outsize absurdities of fleeting fame”(Will Boast, author of Daphne: A Novel).
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateSep 1, 2013
    ISBN9781619022577
    Unavailable
    Any Resemblance to Actual Persons: A Novel
    Author

    Kevin Allardice

    Kevin Allardice is the author of four novels, including Any Resemblance to Actual Persons, which was long-listed for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize. His most recent book is The Ghosts of Bohemian Grove. In 2022, Allardice was a Jack Hazard Fellow with the New Literary Project.

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    Reviews for Any Resemblance to Actual Persons

    1.5/5

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    • 2/5
      I would rate this book 3.5 stars.
      ---
      Let me start off by saying that I thought book would dive a little more into the mystery of the Black Dahlia in a different way.

      The set up of the book was interesting and different from the usual type of book. It starts off basically like a letter that Paul McWeeney writes to the publishers trying to disclaim his sister, Eddie, but it soon becomes something more as it grew to pretty much consume his life.

      While it was an interesting take on the Black Dahlia murder, like which one of the suspects might have clear motive for murdering Elizabeth Short and the alleged confession, I felt that the author "Paul" tends to go a little off topic too much and ramble about a bunch of stuff. There were times when those ramblings were interesting and gave the readers some insight to who Paul, George and Eddie are. The "research" and "stories" written by Paul, George and Eddie overlap a bit too much in some places, and the citations do throw me off a little bit (even though it does make sense given that Paul was trying to disprove his sister).

      Paul is quite the character, as is his sister, Eddie. There were times that I sympathized with both of them, although most of the time I think Paul is so stubborn, obnoxious and so one tracked mind that it really annoys me. Like seriously, you couldn't take the time to talk openly with Julia and Chris a bit more after making some progress?

      Anyways it was an interesting read, the ending could have used something more though. It felt a little open. That and while Paul initially set out to discredit his sister, I am not thoroughly convinced that he did that great of a job. Not a bad read but not a great one as I sort of lost interest through parts of the story.