Book Review: Ex-Wife, a novel by Ursula Parrott (1929)

Originally published in 1929, this is the cover for the 2023 paperback reprinting of Ex-Wife, by Ursula Parrott. 

After I read Marsha Gordon’s excellent 2023 biography Becoming the Ex-Wife: The Unconventional Life & Forgotten Writings of Ursula Parrott, I knew I had to read Parrott’s first novel, Ex-Wife. Published in 1929, Ex-Wife became a sensation, selling over 100,000 copies and launching Parrott’s career. Ex-Wife was republished in 2023 by McNally Editions. Unfortunately, it’s the only one of Parrott’s books that is currently in print. But the fact that Ex-Wife is finding a new audience is a positive one.  

Even though it’s now 95 years old, Ex-Wife is still a powerful book that asks deep questions about marriage and women’s roles in society. Parrott’s writing feels modern and vibrant, and she creates interesting characters to tell the story of Patricia and Peter, and the breakdown of their marriage.  

Ex-Wife was quite a shocking book in its day, and I’ll admit that I was shocked when just a few pages in Patricia and her roommate Lucia have a frank conversation about men. Lucia says, “We are awfully popular, and we know endless men, and we go everywhere.” Patricia responds, “They all want to sleep with us. So soon as they get here for dinner they begin arranging to stay for breakfast.” (p.8) That exchange felt very modern for a 1929 novel.  

Parrott’s nimble prose style keeps the reader swiftly turning the pages of Ex-Wife. There are harrowing moments, but the first-person narration doesn’t dwell on self-pity. Patricia is torn between the Victorian Age and modernity. The dilemmas she faces in Ex-Wife are those of women of every era: the balancing act of marriage, divorce, dating, love, family, children, career, friends. The result is a novel that still feels fresh and vibrant today.  

There’s a marvelous chapter in Ex-Wife that uses George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” as a motif. The sheet music from excerpts of “Rhapsody” is reprinted in the text of the novel, creating a marvelous fusion between music and writing. Perfect for “the Jazz Age.” 

Speaking of “the Jazz Age,” there’s even a reference in Ex-Wife to F. Scott Fitzgerald, who famously coined the term “the Jazz Age.” Patricia tells Lucia “Myself, I’ve progressed, in taste, from Scott Fitzgerald to Ernest Hemingway.” Lucia asks, “How much progress is that?” Patricia replies, “A damn long distance on the road to bigger and broader vocabularies.” (p.68-9) As a Fitzgerald fan, I’m a bit annoyed at this slight against Scott’s writing, but I can understand Patricia’s comment—certainly the subject matter of Fitzgerald and Hemingway was quite different.  

There are many marvelous lines in Ex-Wife, and one of my favorites was Lucia’s description of an older man who occasionally takes her out to dinner: “There’s a man who never got lost among the nuances, for he wouldn’t know a nuance if he saw it.” (p.96) Lucia has another great zinger: “Great Lovers...they remind me of the man who wanted to be a musician and so took one lesson on each instrument in the orchestra...he couldn’t play a tune on any of them in the end, Pat.” (p.134) 

I’d recommend Ex-Wife to anyone interested in a superb novel from the 1920’s that deserves a wider audience today.  

Book Review: Memories Are Made of This: Dean Martin Through His Daughter's Eyes, by Deana Martin, with Wendy Holden (2004)

The cover of Memories Are Made of This: Dean Martin Through His Daughter's Eyes, by Deana Martin, with Wendy Holden, 2004.

Dean Martin was handsome, charming, funny, and had a terrific way with a song. Martin’s act as a loveable drunk was an invention, but it fooled the public for many years. After his breakup with Jerry Lewis in 1956, Martin needed a new nightclub act. Now he could expand his talents, as he no longer had to be just the straight man to the manic Lewis. Of course, the magic of Martin and Lewis was that Dean was so much more than just the straight man. Dino borrowed some of comedian Joe E. Lewis’ drunk act and made it his own. The transition from comedy duo to solo star was so successful that by 1961, a Saturday Evening Post article largely focused on the discrepancy between the public “Dino” that audiences saw on TV and nightclubs, and the private Dean Martin, who was in reality an early riser so he could get out on the golf course. 

Martin’s daughter Deana gives readers an intimate view of the Dean Martin that few people saw in her 2004 memoir Memories Are Made of This: Dean Martin Through His Daughter's Eyes, written with Wendy Holden. The book is a fascinating look at the handsome, amiable man who succeeded at every medium he tried. Television, movies, records, live appearances, Dean Martin ruled them all.  

Deana was born in 1948, the fourth and final child from Martin’s first marriage to Betty McDonald. While Dean quickly remarried, wedding Jeanne Biegger the following year, Betty never got over the breakup of their marriage and descended into alcoholism. When Betty left her children with her sister Anne, promising to be back in three hours, but then disappeared for three days, Anne took them to Dean and Jeanne’s house. This was the real beginning of Deana’s relationship with her father, who quickly obtained custody of his children from his first marriage.  

Deana grew up in a blended household with six siblings, a very sweet stepmother who she quickly started calling “mother,” and a father who was working constantly.  

Deana’s own personality seems to have been very in tune with her father’s and she realized quickly that she had to adapt to Dean’s schedule and interests if she wanted to spend time with him. High on the list of Dean Martin’s interests was golf. So, Deana gladly went with him to the driving range. Conversation was kept to a minimum. “Happy with his own company and entirely self-contained, he didn’t feel the need, as most of us do, to fill a gap in a conversation with chitchat.” (p.88) The hours Dean spent with Deana at the driving range meant a lot to her: “After years without a father, I was spending time alone with Dad at last, and that, to me, was the greatest prize of all.” (p.89)  

At the very beginning of the book, Deana tells us what her response is when people ask her the question “Was he a good father?” She writes “No. He wasn’t a good father, but he was a good man.” (p.3) It’s an interesting distinction to make, and I think by the end of the book it makes sense.  

For Dean Martin fans, one of the joys of reading Memories Are Made of This is knowing that Dean was just the nicest person. As Deana writes, “My father was, truly, the sweetest man in the world. He had a unique aura and was brilliant at making everyone around him feel good.” (p.79) That’s a true gift, and Martin’s warmth still comes across through the screens today. Whether he’s singing a song or acting in a comedy sketch, it’s impossible to watch Dean Martin and not smile.  

Deana reveals some interesting facts about her father. One of the tidbits I found most interesting was about Dean’s reading habits: “He claimed he’d read Black Beauty in school, and it made him cry, so he decided never to read another book again.” (p.151) On the one hand, as someone who loves books and the written word, I’m flabbergasted that Dean wasn’t a reader. Didn’t he even read Airport, by Arthur Hailey, when he was cast in the movie? But on the other hand, I find it quite hilarious and pragmatic that Dean only read one book. Books make you sad, why read another one? Deana writes that if anyone ever told Dean at a party that they had written a book, Dean would reply “Congratulations, I read one.” (p.151) Which is a very funny and snarky thing to say.  

Dean’s sadness over Black Beauty also connects to his love of horses. Dean rode the same horse, Tops, in many of his westerns. Dean was so sad when Tops died in 1972 that he left the set of the movie Showdown to bury the horse. Universal Pictures sued Dean for leaving the set, but he eventually returned. The writer Nick Tosches felt that Martin leaving the set of Showdown was so significant that he used it as a short prologue to open his 1992 biography Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams. Although in the prologue Tosches doesn’t mention anything about Tops’ death, which seems to have been the catalyst for Martin walking off the set.  

Deana Martin doesn’t dish too much dirt about her father, but she does mention that he had relationships with singer Petula Clark and actress Inger Stevens. I’m not surprised about Dean’s relationship with Petula Clark, as she and Dean had amazing, electric chemistry. Inger Stevens co-starred with Dean in the 1968 western Five Card Stud, which also starred another laid-back icon of mid-century cool, Robert Mitchum. Deana reveals that she had a brief relationship with Mitchum while they filmed Young Billy Young. Deana never told her father about her relationship with Mitchum, which is understandable. (p.164)  

Deana’s special bond with her father was solidified when Dean’s mother Angela taught Deana how to make pasta fagioli, Dean’s favorite. One of the sweetest chapters of the book is when Deana starts making pasta fagioli for Dean after his mother’s death. It was a way for Deana to do something for her father, a man who had everything.  

Memories Are Made of This is a charming and touching look at Dean Martin, one of the great entertainers of his time.