Good Reads: Behind The Scenes
Movies, television, and classic books are all good stuff, but there’s often good stuff behind the scenes.
“Ticking Clock: Behind The Scenes at 60 Minutes” by Ira Rosen
This book reads like a “60 Minutes” piece on “60 Minutes”. It’s a revealing, tell-all memoir from a former producer who spent 25 years working on one of the most famous television programs in history.
The show, with its iconic ticking clock, defined a new type of magazine programming celebrated for its groundbreaking investigative reporting. Ira Rosen, Peabody and 24-time Emmy award-winning producer, was Mike Wallace’s top producer and was responsible for some of the program’s most memorable moments and significant episodes.
Wallace was a controversial and complicated figure. While a considerable talent, he could also be abusive, misogynistic, and suffered from depression to the point of being suicidal. According to Rosen, he fostered a toxic workplace culture fraught with the kind of rampant sexual harassment that would set off very loud #MeToo alarms today.
Rosen’s backstage dishes include other famous targets, like a takedown of longest-tenured correspondent Steve Kroft, as well as an unflattering portrayal of Katie Couric who did a stint on the show, who he describes as “lazy and disengaged.”
The book is not completely surprising to me since I had professional experience with the show. Decades ago I was assigned to the CBS News account while I was working in advertising. During my short exposure to the organization, our ad team endured a bizarre outburst by executive producer Don Hewitt, and a menacing Mike Wallace questioning about agency fees. The topper was being told that the 60 Minutes correspondents were so competitive with each other that there was no way they would sit together for a group photo for our print ad.
This is juicy and entertaining reading but as a “60 Minutes” fan, I couldn’t help but be disappointed by some of the reveals. Rosen explains that he was “trapped” by the legendary Mike Wallace, and sticking it out because of fear and ambition. Maybe that came with the territory back then. Let’s hope that no longer applies today.
“Trio” by William Boyd
This is author William Boyd’s sixteenth novel. He has also written dozens of screenplays for film and television. His latest is this fictional story, a cynical take on movie making. It’s a comedy and a tragedy. Either way, it’s a welcomed diverting read, especially from today’s typically stressful headlines.
Boyd assembles a trio of characters involved in an ill-fated, calamity-filled movie-production taking place in the summer of 1968 in Brighton, England. Each has a secret that threatens to become their undoing. A “closeted” movie producer who hides his secret wants, an alcoholic has-been writer whose gin-swilling obscures her writer’s block and failing marriage, and an actress with multiple lovers, a drug issue, and a radical ex who’s being hunted by the FBI.
It’s an amusing and cynical statement on the movie-making process. The narrator observes, “this was the story of his life in cinema: ordinary norms of behavior did not apply and perhaps this was the great seduction of film-making.”
But beneath the surface of the reckless adventure-story of movie making, we sense a looming disquiet from all the secrets that are held. As the characters hide their real selves, the tension and weight of their confidences become more than they can bear.
The book reflects on the larger question of who writes the script of our fates? Like a movie script, it could be art, chance, or the choices we make that are the difference between devastation and happy endings.
“Liars Dictionary” by Eley Williams
You may not be drawn to reading a book about a dictionary, but this is actually a funny mystery, a love story, and clever and inventive literary fiction.
Enter the world of dictionary lexicographers, those who write and compile words for dictionaries. Meet two protagonists who exist more than a century apart, one from today and the other from 1899, both working for the Swansby Dictionary House in London.
The story weaves together the parallel narrative of their lives, a lovelorn Victorian man and a young woman of today struggling to embrace her sexuality. Charged with verifying dictionary entries, she roots out mountweazels (fictitious entries within dictionaries and works of reference to prevent copyright infringement) that he secretly slipped into the dictionary’s actual printing years ago.
Words matter to them, but given the state of their lives, maybe too much. Both are fervent about veracity in language, but the lies they harbor about themselves prevent them from achieving authenticity in the physical world. We all look to dictionaries to give us the meaning of words. This charming book surprises us by pausing to consider the difference between meaning and truth.
“A Swim In The Pond In The Rain” by George Saunders
George Saunders, 2017 Booker Prize-winner author of “Lincoln in the Bardo”, has been teaching MFA students at Syracuse University for twenty years. This book is a version of that class, where, as the full title of the book states, “Four Russians Give A Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life.”
This literary “master class” is constructed around seven iconic short stories. Nearly a third of this book isn’t written by Saunders. Instead, he dissects and analyses excerpts from four famous Russian greats, Chekhov, Turgenev, Gogol, and Tolstoy.
Saunders focuses less on the process of how their words form great writing and more on how the reading affects the reader. For him, great writing is not just about technical skill but how the author’s word reaches, touches, and challenges the mind of the reader.
His is an exploration of the larger purpose of writing as art, noting that what makes stories work is “what they can tell us about ourselves — and our world today.”
In the introduction, Saunders states, “this is a book for writers, but also, I hope, for readers.” As a reader, I enjoyed the contemplative, erudite interpretation of the themes, meanings, and significances of these classic stories. As a writer, I came away profoundly intimidated.
