The Days of the Bitter End - Hardcover

Jack Engelhard

3.17

6 ratings by Goodreads

9780967407425: The Days of the Bitter End

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0967407427 ISBN 13: 9780967407425

Publisher: ComteQ Publishing, 2001

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Did two Kennedys die on that tragic day in Dallas? This is the drama during the days of Camelot when American comedy turned into Amerca s tragedy... Americans lost their innocence on that tragic day in Dallas November 22, 1963. The Days of the Bitter End takes readers back to the streets of the political and cultural focal point of the sixties: New York City's Greenwich Village -- at the moment of one of contemporary history's life-changing events -- John F. Kennedy's assassination. But for comedian Cliff Harris, whose career was based solely on his superb talent to imitate the dashing young President Kennedy, life is changed forever.

After rising from obscurity in Philadelphia to national prominence on television s entertainment institution, The Ed Sullivan Show, Harris (whose character is based on real-life Kennedy impersonator Vaughn Meader) becomes America s most popular comedic performer, doing JFK so well that even the First Lady has a tough time telling the difference. But when the popular president is suddenly gunned down by Lee Harvey Wallace, the bullets that kill Kennedy also kill Harris career, taking him down along with rest of Camelot.

The novel is populated with real people of the "beat scene." Engelhard was there during that thrilling era -- the doorman at the now-famous Bitter End nightclub that played host to many counter-culture legends including Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul & Mary, Lenny Bruce, Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, and Jack Kerouac. His novel is filled with lively fictionalized versions of characters he knew and worked with that capture the passion and drama of the 60s generation.The Days of the Bitter End vividly brings to life the streets of New York City s renowned Greenwich Village. That vibrant political and cultural focal point of the 1960s is stunningly reflected in all its exuberance, sex, pot-smoking, poetry and politics.

Engelhard's heartfelt work recaptures the day American innocence turned into an American tragedy and our nation moved from the sweetness of postwar life to the bitter era of Vietnam.

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From the Publisher:

Set against the backdrop of a monumental news event that touched the lives of all Americans — the assassination of John F. Kennedy — The Days of the Bitter End vividly takes us back to an era that dominates our culture to this very day. The novel captures the passion, and the drama of the 60s, as it recreates the idealism that was won at the emergence of JFK, and then lost at the onset of Vietnam.

Jack Engelhard’s book is a true original, especially in the author’s masterful portrayal of his fictional Cliff Harris, the comedian whose career was based solely upon his talent to imitate our most glamorous president — and who thereby personifies not only JFK, but the entire spectrum of that pulsating era.

The novel brings to life the people, places and events that made the 60s so indelible, and Engelhard succeeds in bringing his vision to the fore as he sets before us a Greenwich Village — the focal point of the novel and the 60s — that throbs "to the beat of bongo-drums." . . .

We all was somewhere the day President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas. Those of us old enough, say in our mid-forties now, remember exactly where we heard the news. Those too young or not yet born on November 22, 1963 are nonetheless still paying for the events of the day the world stopped on its axis and began to spin the other way. Certainly, Jack Engelhard remembers, and so would each of the memorable characters from his latest novel, The Days Of the Bitter End.

For Ben Jaffa, doorman at the Bitter End, a popular club on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village—the tough young man closest to Jack’s own experience — the November day punctuated his growing alienation from the Village scene, his three buddies, Richie, Howie, and Cliff, and his girlfriend Louise Carmen, whom he shares with Richie. Ben is a perennial exile, a refugee from Nazi-occupied France who is at home anywhere and no place. At a time of civil rights protests and hootenannies, when Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul and Mary sang the songs that topped the charts, and the middle class snickered at Lenny Bruce while he excoriated the sexual foibles of the middle class, Ben’s beef is mainly with himself. He is existential enough to have stepped out of Camus.

Richie Bell, a rich kid from Connecticut, is nicer, flakier, a guitar strummer. But it is typical of Engelhard’s subterranean way with a story that Richie keeps a poisonous snake as a pet and maybe a homicidal tool. Howie, a shmo everybody makes fun of, turns out to be as convoluted as the snake and more dangerous. Louise Carmen is a pleasant surprise: a sophisticated coal miner’s daughter who sings, and loves, better than Loretta Lynn. In this rich novel you are going to mine some nuggets of character. . . .

In a sense, Bitter End is the story of the rise and fall of Cliff Harris, from Philadelphia obscurity to America’s most popular comedian. Cliff is a superb impersonator who does JFK so well that Jackie could hardly tell the difference. He is a mainstay of that strange postwar institution, the Ed Sullivan Show. But when the dashing young president is gunned down, what becomes of his shadow? You probably won’t guess right. Bitter End is a classy and classical novel with the triple unities of time, place and action. Yet it brings to life the sixties scene with all its exuberance, fun sex and pot-smoking, and devious police informing. It is Engelhard’s most heartfelt work to date, easy to read, easy to like, but hard to forget. Like that day in November when a lot of us lost our innocence.

From the Author:

We are still living under the umbrella of the 60s. This is where today’s culture had its foundation. However, when we talk about the 60s, we’re talking about a decade that had two different faces — comedy (first half), tragedy (second half). I tried to reflect that in the novel. I concentrated more on the first half because the period that signals a change is more dramatically appealing to me than the change itself — like James Jones From Here To Eternity. I mean, How did things so sweet get so bitter? was my question. (I happen to believe that a novel should ask more than it answers. Answers are for the reader. Questions are for the author. That’s the difference between Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Hemingway had the answers, Fitzgerald had the questions. And as of the moment Fitzgerald is outlasting Hemingway).

I don’t think there is such a thing as being overly idealistic as long as you don’t become a zealot. Idealism is fine as long as it doesn’t become fanaticism. As far as I know, the 60s were our only idealistic decade of the past 40 years. It is my view that the 60s made the indelible imprint that persists to this day — politically and culturally. Relations between men and women (women’s liberation, sexual liberation), relations between the races (protests that sparked civil rights legislation in ‘64 and ‘65) are very much a part of our lives to this day.

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