Unruly children as parents
Geordie Greig
STARSTRUCK by Cosmo Landesman Macmillan, £14.99, pp. 324, ISBN 9780330446280 If as a child you found your parents embarrassing then this hiss-andtell memoir will make you feel a lot better, as Cosmo Landesman had parents who were off the Richter scale of embarrassment. Jay and Fran were two wacky, middle-aged American egotists who arrived in ‘the land of the stiff upper lip’ and caused mayhem. Blind to their own blush-making toxicity, they were obsessed with being famous.
Life at home was like a bad sitcom, as they canoodled with their respective lovers in front of their children’s schoolfriends and then, like some grotesque TV reality show, shamelessly paraded their open marriage to the media, the ultimate examples of the look-at-me-me-me gen eration. Poor little Cosmo blushed and cringed most days as they rode roughshod over his childhood. His simple expectations of having parents who might want to put their children first or encourage their offsprings’ dreams rather than sideline them as a tiresome interruption to their all-important pursuit of fame were monstrously derailed.
Starstruck is a funny book in both senses. Landesman essentially skewers his mum and dad with his pen, but even this feeds their egotism. We learn that they revel in their son’s blame-game memoir, seeing it as a new and welcome platform from which to propel their ambitions. So the book is also a commentary on fame, celebrity and success, but not the success of being a loving parent, patient listener, supporter, cocooner or even moral guide. It highlights the emptiness of their interpretation: the pursuit of status.
Cosmo is relentless in making the same point again and again, sometimes like a scream but more often as an amusing riff, railing against a life-long injustice. Perhaps the only crumb of comfort is that his parents deserve each other. Thank goodness their remarkably sane and seemingly undamaged son was born with a sense of humour. If Cosmo couldn’t laugh, this would be a tale beyond tears and redemption. And the wonderful thing is that he clearly loves Jay and Fran; as well as forgiving them, he sort of relishes them. Await the movie: Steve Martin would be the perfect dad.
Cosmo is the film critic of the Sunday Times who was once also famous for being married to Julie Burchill. His journalism probably saved him from going mad, and he is good: he writes catchy, original, arresting prose with a full-on directness. It is addictive stuff, and in some ways Starstruck reads like a necklace of personal columns strung together into an overstretched book format.
For 45-plus years he learned to cope with his parents’ loudness and unpredictablity, always playing second fiddle to their selfabsorption. His dad complains in a Wimpy bar that bad service from the waiter might tip him towards a nervous breakdown. Joke or not? It is difficult to tell. Jay has himself previously written two vanity-published memoirs and has tried to produce a film autobiopic. But he and Fran did have some interesting times and were successful. They were popular Americans in Britain precisely because they were clownish, available and high-octane. The weirdest side of their life was parenting.
Cosmo rightly protests that his parents were just like unruly children, always making scenes and always heard. This is a warm-hearted and extremely eccentric tribute to them. And of course they love the book: it puts them centre-stage. ❑
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