Hello Darling, Are You Working? : A Novel

Stripped of all his assets after the stock market crash of 1987, Parisian soap star Rhys Waveral begins a twentieth-century rake's progress from Paris nightclubs to English country homes to depraved costume balls in Tangiers. A first novel. 25,000 first printing. $15,000 ad/promo.

Rhys Waveral's life is not exactly at a high point when this sprightly and wickedly funny first novel opens. Following the cancellation of his highly successful American TV series, the young British actor (and former male hustler) retired to Paris to regroup. When the stock market crashes, leaving him penniless, he agrees to a paid assignation with a wealthy woman in order to raise cash to defray his mammoth hotel bill. To complicate matters further, his father (the Brigadier), his mother (Lady Dinah) and his frail, agoraphobic wife (Adrienne)--none of whom know more than a few details of his lifestyle--all descend upon him at once. The action flits from Paris to London to Tangier in a fast-paced farce that never stops. The author, himself an English actor, writes like a cross between Joe Keenan (to whose Blue Heaven the book bears more than a superficial likeness) and Gerald Durrell, depicting the British upper class and Parisian gay subculture with equal verve. Behind his humor lurk the grim realities of the late 1980s, with AIDS never far from the scene. Although he delivers a surprisingly downbeat denouement which would seem to preclude a sequel, a writer of Everett's obvious talent may very well find a way to have his marvelously daft set of characters make a repeat appearance. His well-written and hilarious book will certainly leave readers wanting more.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Candide in modern drag: British actor Everett's first novel retails the naughty adventures of a pill-popping, omnisexual naif as he cruises a jet-set world in which everything, especially him, is for sale. Still smarting from his childhood discovery of the male member that will prevent him from becoming a Great Actress, and warmed by his fonder memories of his early days as a precocious male prostitute, onetime soap-opera star Rhys Waveral is living on, and living it up, in a suite at the Hotel Leicester in Paris--until his father, Brigadier Dimbleby (``Dim'') Waveral, phones with the news that Rhys's financial advisor, ``that bloody deviant, Gavin Winterton,'' has just sold him short in the stock market crash of '87. What to do? With stoic sighs, Rhys (a.k.a. Dorhys, Dorita, Lady Beth Fraser, etc.) runs off on his lovely, accident-prone wife Adrienne to return to his old profession, agreeing to accompany hideous Rikki Lancaster, ``the Duchess,'' and her lesbian medium companion, Elida Schumann, to Tangiers for a week of torrid, expensive passion. As Dim takes off for Paris to have it out with his wayward son, and Rhys's friend Peach Delight takes it on herself to dazzle him with Ecstasy and d‚colletage, Rhys plunges into a furious carnival of grotesques--from Sir Maurice Goodbuns to Little Beige Riding Hood--all coming together (so to speak) for a memorable climax at Ashby de la Zouche's costume extravaganza, the 1988 Fruit Ball. Since Everett hasn't Joe Orton's command of the mechanics of farce, Rhys's riotous, in-your-face odyssey finally comes across as sad and a little boring. But readers hungry for the latest sex-and- drugs update on the too-too beautiful people, darling, could make this a hit anyway. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.