Niagara Falls All Over Again - Hardcover

McCracken, Elizabeth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385318375 ISBN 13: 9780385318372

Publisher: Dial Press, 2001

Synopsis

During thirty years together as the most famous comedy team of their era, conniving comedian Rocky Carter and his straightman, Mose Sharp, a small-town boy from Valley Junction, Iowa, have enjoyed a warm relationship and encountered a host of colorful characters on their road to fame and fortune, until Rocky commits a desperate act of betrayal. 50,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

Elizabeth McCracken seems to specialise in unlikely romance: the inventive Niagara Falls All Over Again is the story of a vaudevillian's love for the one person he can't be without--his partner in comedic crime and her charmingly quirky debut, The Giant's House, was the story of a librarian's passion for the world's tallest boy.

In Niagara Falls Carter and Sharp, a vaudeville team that makes the leap to B-list film fame, have perfected a classic shtick: the stern Professor and the hapless, bumbling Rocky. Off screen, however, their roles are reversed. Mose Sharp is mild-mannered and accommodating, while Rocky Carter is a jovial bully--the kind of guy, Sharp thinks, who "compared the slices of cake on an arriving dessert tray and got disappointed, really disappointed, when the largest was delivered to somebody who wasn't him".

Show business is a subject tailor-made for McCracken's eccentric gifts. Her timing is impeccable, and she's no slouch with the jokes either. But she's not playing this one just for laughs. As anyone who read The Giant's House knows, McCracken writes prose of uncommon beauty, studded with images both arresting and sad. This second novel is a balancing act on an even greater scale: tender but never sentimental, verbally dexterous but never merely clever. Like its predecessor, Niagara Falls will have you reading aloud to whoever will listen. --Mary Park, Amazon.com

Review:

" Any doubts that McCracken could not equal the inventiveness, wit and quirky imagination of her first novel, The Giant's House, will be dispelled by this relentlessly eventful, rollickingly funny and heartwarming narrative. In its delicate balance of black humor, irony and pathos, this novel is as exhilarating as the waters of Niagara, its flow mimicking the tumultuous rush of time. " -- Publishers Weekly

Any doubts that McCracken could not equal the inventiveness, wit and quirky imagination of her first novel, The Giant's House, will be dispelled by this relentlessly eventful, rollickingly funny and heartwarming narrative. In its delicate balance of black humor, irony and pathos, this novel is as exhilarating as the waters of Niagara, its flow mimicking the tumultuous rush of time. Publishers Weekly"

"Any doubts that McCracken could not equal the inventiveness, wit and quirky imagination of her first novel, The Giant's House, will be dispelled by this relentlessly eventful, rollickingly funny and heartwarming narrative. In its delicate balance of black humor, irony and pathos, this novel is as exhilarating as the waters of Niagara, its flow mimicking the tumultuous rush of time."--Publishers Weekly

About this edition

• Publisher: Dial Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0385318375
• ISBN 13: 9780385318372
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384