Tell-All

The hyperactive love child of Page Six and Whatever Happened to BabyJane? caught in a tawdry love triangle with The Fan. Even Kitty Kelly willblush. Soaked, nay, marinated in the world of vintage Hollywood, Tell-All isa Sunset Boulevard-inflected homage to Old Hollywood when BetteDavis and Joan Crawford ruled the roost; a veritable Tourette's syndrome ofrat-tat-tat name-dropping, from the A-list to the Z-list; and a mercilesssend-up of Lillian Hellman's habit of butchering the truth that willhave Mary McCarthy cheering from the beyond. Our Thelma Ritter-ish narrator is Hazie Coogan, who for decades has tendedto the outsized needs of Katherine "Miss Kathie" Kenton—veteran ofmultiple marriages, career comebacks, and cosmetic surgeries. But dangerarrives with gentleman caller Webster Carlton Westward III, who worms hisway into Miss Kathie's heart (and boudoir). Hazie discovers that thisbounder has already written a celebrity tell-all memoir foretelling MissKathie's death in a forthcoming Lillian Hellman-penned musicalextravaganza; as the body count mounts, Hazie must execute a plan tosave Katherine Kenton for her fans—and for posterity. Tell-All is funny, subversive, and fascinatingly clever. It's wild, it'swicked, it's bold-faced—it's vintage Chuck.