Too Much Money. Too Much Repetition. Book 6

Do audio books count? I am going with yes. It seems that the dog can neither drive nor read so I had to break down, spend the cheese, and buy an audio book. I have never felt so 80 years old in my life. Except this morning, but that was probably the hangover. Actually, I bought two, but Amazon was unable to deliver the goods in time for my trip. Naturally, the one that I really didn't want was the one that arrived on time.

Good ol' Dominick Dunne. How could I go wrong? Snark and high society for 9.5 hours of the 11.5 I had to kill in the car. Let me just start by saying I was under the impression that unabridged meant complete, not repetitious. I guess I was wrong. So the hook is this, Gus Baily is being sued for slander. He repeated a tidbit of gossip on a radio show that turned out to be false. This story was spread and he is not on the hook for $11M. Gus is a thinly disguised Dominick. Though I can't remember for what he was being sued, but it was something. Anyway Gus gets contracted to write a novel about the death of Konstantin Zacharias. A thinly veiled Edmond Saffra. Konstantin's wife is none too pleased and wishes for the whole thing to go away. Other insanely wealthy characters come and go, surely disguised real insanely wealthy people whom I am not aware of as HSV AL is not very close to the upper east side and the only 0s in my check book are in the tens column. So I knew in my brain that there had to be some type of a plot and I kept listening and listening to find one, but alas, none was to be found. Gus fades in and out of chapters and becomes progressively more whiny and also comes out of the closet. Wait, was Dominick Dunne gay? No matter this is a gossip novel. Names of fancy items are repeated and repeated. Turnbull and Asser, one must really have their suits and ties and shirts handmade there. Smythson of Bond Street Stationers, forget the Moleskine you common white trash! If you are lucky enough to own your own jet you are the shit and you will make many friends. Lasting and true relationships I am certain. All maids are thieves. Old single rich ladies have Walkers. Shit you not, when the Brooke Astor character shows up at a luncheon with her Walker Winkie Williams I thought that she had named the apparatus that aided in her mobility. Not so much. Old rich ladies have Gays to squire them around. Huh. I will have to impart this knowledge on my friend Kevin. Then there is the sex. Let me tell you, I am a teen aged boy at heart. The reading aloud of dirty words by some woman who is trying to be dead serious in various accents slayed me. At one point an insanely wealthy man has a stroke with his penis *giggle giggle she said penis* out in the bathroom. The sentence went something like, "his penis began to urniate all over." So does that mean that the penis is really the brains of the operation? Or is it it's own separate entity? That explains quite a few things. When the mention of rimming came about I nearly lost control of the car. As for the repetition. Every single time a person was mentioned their background was given. After 5 hours I was reciting, with the reader, the back story on each person. Horrid. Simply horrid. It was literally too much. As for the resolution of the nonplot, I have no idea. I do not know if the lawsuit was dropped, if the book got written, if the secrets all came out. It is just a blur. So, long and short of it, fine for the beach. Fine for the car. Not offensive, but not worth the $22 either.