"Dirty Eddie" by Ludwig Bemelmans BOOK REVIEW

Five Stars. I would give five stars to every page of this book. 240 pages, so that makes it 1,200 stars. I have always liked Ludwig Bemelmans work - especially his travel writing as well as his book about hotel life and running a restaurant in the hotel. But here we have the ultimate 1940s Hollywood era novel, with a cast of hundreds - well at least six or seven, and of course a pig by the name of Dirty Eddie. But Dirty Eddie doesn't even make an appearance till page one hundred-and-something. The beauty of this book is the writing. The words flow out of Bemelmans like the expert that he truly was. He reminds me of P.G. Wodehouse in that he shares the sense of absurdity, with the right sentence at the perfect time. On the surface "Dirty Eddie" may seem light, but I think it's an incredible novel of its time and place (Hollywood, California). 

I don't know the origins of the novel, but I am betting that the characters are based on real people, and perhaps this novel was serialized in a magazine - but that is all an educated guess. Nevertheless: Superb!  I also got this book out of the Los Angeles Downtown Library.