SPEAKEASY by Nathaniel Benchley

Finished Mo 10/17/16

This is a hardback that I owned and it looks as if I bought it at the library sidewalk sale. There is no date of purchase and I have apparently never read it.

The novel is set during Prohibition and it's about the characters and the action at Nick Baldino and his wife, Marie Dubros speakeasy, CIRCE, in downtown NYC.

Roland Butterworth- He's a newspaperman and very straightlaced. He becomes a PR Man and possibly an alcoholic. He has two kids and a wife who live in the suburbs. Although he spends many nights away from his home, his wife still cares for him, but there is a feeling that she might be having an affair.

Frank was a hero in WWI and met Marie while in France. He was recuperating from bullet wounds.

Marie is an accomplished cook and has always wanted a restaurant.

George MacDougall- Also a reporter and Roland rooms with him on the nights that he can't make it back to the suburbs. Also a boyfriend of Dorothy. He was the father of her child which she aborted. Lionel (Puddin), a baby and Nancy, a toddler are George's kids.

Fred McClain is an engineer and Nick allows him to drink and eat for free because he makes changes to the layout of the CIRCE. He's also the boyfriend of Dorothy Peterson. She seems to be based on the character of Dorothy Parker.

Lucky Livorno- He is a gangster in the protection rackets. He tries to shakedown Nick, but he always refuses to pay.

'Circe' was the enchantress represented by Homer as turning the companions of Odysseus into swine by means of a magic drink. A most clever name for the speakeasy and thought of by Marie.

k- EE- r- k- ee    pronunciation of CIRCE

The action is rather bland, but the characters are kind of noble almost to the point of being unbelievable. I guess the author is trying to recreate Robert Benchley's love and admiration of these people.

The book almost seems to pave the way for a sequel as in the last scene Roland Butterworth has become a famous stage actor and leaves for Hollywood to seek fame and fortune. And, his wife Sarah might have taken up with one of their neighbors' husbands, Mark. The kids referred to him as 'Uncle Mark'.  On the other hand, the main focus of the novel is the action in and around CIRCE and he's trying to portay (in a fictional setting) Robert Benchley's time at The Algonquin Table.

From Kirkus-

KIRKUS REVIEW

It's somehow fitting that N. Benchley's last, posthumous novel is a loving, roman à  clef-fy evocation of R. Benchley's 1920s--because, while Benchley Jr. at his best (The Off-Islanders) was a genial entertainer, he never really strode out from under the shadow of his father's comic genius. (Not to mention the commercial success of son Peter.) A fellow awfully reminiscent of the young Robert Benchley, then, is the central figure in this near-plotless ramble: Roland Butterworth--who, with ""a bow tie and an embryonic moustache,"" is seen dabbling in assorted night-crawler careers (reporter, theatrical press agent, actor). . . while his neglected wife, off in the country with the kids, grows increasingly impatient for Roly to settle down. And among Roly's pals and acquaintances in the Manhattan '20s are a slew of real and almost-real Benchley comrades: Humphrey Bogart; Ring Lardner; John Barrymore (""Which part are you going to play?"" asks Roly when Barrymore announces plans for a Hamlet production); Dorothy Peters--a faithful mock-up of Benchley's beloved Parker, complete with rotten love affairs, suicide attempts, wisecracks, and boozing; and Nick Baldino, operator (with WW I war-bride Marie) of a speakeasy/restaurant called the Club Circe. There are dib-dabs of action here--a few prohibition raids, Nick's troubles with the Mob. But, for the most part, Benchley cheerfully mixes bits of '20s history (Sacco-Vanzetti) with lots of theater/newspaper chat, plus agreeable food-and-drink details. And, though some of the quasi-biographical material can get confusing for those in the know (Parker's doomed real-life passion, John McClain, is called MacDougall here, while another lover is called McClain), this is a pleasant Twenties-in-New-York pastiche--and an oblique yet revealing portrait of the Benchley/Parker circle in its early days, in some ways more revealing than N. Benchley's 1955 biography of his father.

Author's page at wikipedia-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Benchley