I REALLY love Mallon!!! This is the third or fourth of his that I've read and I'm not going to stop until I've read them all. Mallon writes "historical" novels - mostly novels surrounded by a history. Bandbox takes place in 1928, Prohibition, slick men's and women's fashion magazines, the rise of Conde Nast, Hollywood's change to "talkies," and, of course, the stock bubble that will burst into the Depression a short year later. The historical part plays like a light motif around the plot and it helps to know your history to truly appreciate Mallon's books.In this case, an upstart slick men's fashion magazine, Cutaway, has obtained a photograph of its competitor, Bandbox, being held and, apparently read, by the infamous Leopold and Loeb, the Nietzchean boy murderers in Chicago. Bandbox has to go on the defensive here. Cutaway's editor is the former golden boy at Bandbox, making the competition all the worse. From here we bounce to graft and the buying of the New York judicial system by gangsters; the open flaunting of Prohibition; Al Jolson, Francis Marion (!), Lilian Gish, Ernest Hemingway, The Jungle, George M. Cohan; the advent of installment payments with Montgomery Ward (I actually used to work for them...), and much more. If you don't know your history, it behooves you to look up the references, but then this begins to seem like a school book instead of a novel. I did have trouble keeping some of the characters apart at first (and sometimes partway through), but I put that down to the larger number of main characters here compared to the other Mallon books I've read. But the delightful play of novel against the background of history but not OF the history is worth doing a little bit more work.
I confess that this is one of the rare books that won't stay permanently on my bookshelf, but not because it was such a bad read. The story was cute; I liked the setting in 1920's NY; and some of the characters were interesting enough. On the other hand, nothing from the book really stuck with me. I'll let it go out to the local book sale so someone else can have fun with it. I purchased it a the Green Valley Bookfair in Virginia (gobookfair.com) while on vacation. This place is a pole barn out in the middle of nowhere between Harrisonburg & Staunton, but man did they have a nice set up with TONS of books. They also had a map that folks had stuck pins in to designate where they came from. Check it out if you are ever out that way; just be aware that they have limited hours.
Do You like book Bandbox (2005)?
Bandbox hooked me in the first few chapters with its quirky, well-developed characters and fun vintage atmosphere. I figured it would be a more character-driven novel, and I was ok with that. Three-quarters of the way through, though, there was barely a storyline, and the characterization had slowed way down for some characters and been completely dropped for others. To me it seemed as if the author was having a great time building up his characters when he remembered that there was supposed to be a story, and sort of threw together a plot. I enjoyed the book as a whole, but I definitely struggled to get through it at the end.
—Aimee
At the beginning of the novel, Mallon defines "bandbox" as a light, cylindrical box for holding small articles of attire. Rather than a serious piece of furniture, it's quite flimsy. Most reviewers report that the novel of the same name is a light work of literature as well; it's neither highly original nor mind-opening, and it won't stand the test of time.Its lightweight feel, however, does not diminish its charms. Bandbox has charm in spades. Mallon creates a huge, unique, and entertaining cast of characters, with each member engaging in clever capers while spewing zippy dialogue. Critics across the board call Mallon's depiction of the cutthroat magazine business spell-binding, and praise his evocation of the booming '20s. He does occasionally provide such in-depth detail that "without an encyclopedia (or access to the Internet) the general reader will not acquire an increased knowledge of the period," according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, but the plethora of encyclopedic facts doesn't take away from the fun. Ubiquitous screwball comedy is the novel's selling point, but underneath lies a subtle foreshadowing of troubled times to come. More than one reviewer movingly noted the startling similarities between the 1920s and the 1990s. Not so startling is its timeless tale of office intrigue and romance. "For those willing to take a gamble," writes the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, "this novel simply vibrates with talent and goodwill." This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.
—Bookmarks Magazine
