Yay! I Finished Reading Another Book --- "The Eternal Party" by Kristina Hagman

Well, I sort of finished reading another book.   I'll explain.

I was back on a plane and that's really the only time I crack open a book.  By the way, it's an actual book and not a Kindle.   I like the feeling of a book in my hand as I turn the pages.   No scrolling for me.  But I digress.

A friend loaned me this book, knowing that I was a big fan of the old (and then rebooted) "Dallas" TV show.   Larry Hagman, whom I know was an odd duck, was always interesting to me.   This would be a fast read.

Um, no.   Seated in 13C on AA Flight 172 to JFK, I dozed off several times while attempting to read Larry's daughter Kristina's memories of her dad.  You want to talk about uninspiring prose?   This book is filled with it.  Perhaps the dullest writing you will ever encounter.   The ingredient label on a bottle of Snapple is more compelling.

You would think this would be a juicy tome.  I mean, how can you screw up a memoir about a legendary actor living in Hollywood?   Well, Kristina did.   Indeed, I am sure her intentions were good.   She opens the tale with her dad on his death bed.  In the throes of pain, he is babbling jibberish but clearly keeps repeating "please forgive me."  Okay, Kristina's literary journey will be to try and uncover what Larry was seeking forgiveness for.

It beats me if she ever found it.   Now I want to hear her repeating the same phrase for putting this book together.

The saga meanders from her childhood to adulthood as her dad mounted an acting career first on the stage, then film, and finally TV.  Along the way, she liberally recounts their pot parties together.   I guess the father and daughter who smoke joints together form a special bond.  Then there's a lot of family nudity and all sorts of stuff that was perfected in the mud at Woodstock.  This is was quite the free wheeling life style.   And, essentially, that's all the author focuses on.

Yawn.

By half way through the book, I was so completely uninterested by it all that I started to skim the rest of the pages.   I started to look for names that might trigger some nice tidbits.  Patrick Duffy.  Linda Gray.  Victoria Principal. Barbara Eden.   

Nothing.   Even when the TV work was discussed, it was indeed some goofy drug episode or an art gallery showing that Kristina's work was featured in.   Ugh.   At least, she can paint.   She certainly can't write.

Technically, I guess I did finish the book because I did look at every page of it.  But absorb any of it?  Lord, no.

Kristina, please forgive me.

Dinner last night:  Prosciutto, heirloom tomato, and mozzarella salad.