There's No Place Like the Ritz

Explores a female journalist's love for a cabaret singer--a gay man who travels with the woman and her husband--and the intricacies of addictive need and behaviors

At the beginning of this story of love among the jet set, Nanda Dobson, a fashionable journalist married to Duff Hamilton, an alcoholic artist, has fallen in love with Timothy Shea, a cabaret singer. Readers will quickly suspect that Tim is gay, though Nanda, obsessed by passion, denies it. That is very nearly the narrative limit of this stylish, current but curiously static story from the author of The Girl on the Coca-Cola Tray. On an extended European trip with both Duff and Tim, Nanda goes to bed alone each night, comforting herself with cocaine as she considers the nature and varieties of intimacy. Not much changes between Tim and Nanda when she begins to see his therapist, as well as her own. Nor does much insight occur after Duff checks into a rehabilitation hospital, and Nanda goes with Tim to gigs she has arranged in posh hotels in Rio and then in London, where, even though both of them take other lovers, she continues to entertain fantasies of a full life with Tim. While glimpses of five-star living in some of the world's great hotels offer their own reward, Winters' tale is a glib portrayal that fails to move or convince.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Approaching middle age, jet setter Nanda Dobson is handling life with an alchoholic husband through reliance on cocaine and a succession of psychiatrists. Starved for affection, is it any wonder that she falls madly in love with cabaret singer Tim Shea? She becomes Tim's manager, launching him into "society" with engagements in London and Rio de Janeiro. Seeing Tim as a kindred soul who shares a Catholic upbringing, she becomes obsessed. Tim, however, is homosexual. This complication forces Nanda to look at herself, making her time with Tim a rite of passage. Well written, but probably best suited for very sophisticated readers. Purchase with discretion. Maria A. Perez-Stable, Western Michigan Univ. Libs., Kalamazoo
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.