Razzle Dazzle

Former Playboy pinup and actor Stevens (co-star with Elvis in Girls! Girls! Girls!) joins novelist Hegner (Rainbowland, 1977, etc.), once the agent for Errol Flynn and Grace Kelly, to produce a sleazy novel about Sidney Bastion, a p.r. flack whose fame and power soar when he lands the Presley knockoff and pelvic personality Johnny Gault as his client. The prose ranges from smarmily sexy (pornographic in intent if not in explicitness) to relentlessly banal, with one dreadful clich‚ clashing upon the next. The story, as it means to be, is sheer trash. Yes, one wants to like Johnny Gault, despite the penisification of his glory by Stevens and Hegner, but the real focus is the hugely egocentric Bastion, whom no reader could love or remain interested in. (He's less a caricature of Colonel Parker, Elvis's real agent, than a chip off the block of p.r. hustler Sidney Falco in the scathing film Sweet Smell of Success.) Memphis-based Bastion's success comes swiftly indeed upon signing Johnny Gault. He moves his office to Manhattan and pulls down sexual favors so fast that the reader's head spins. Not only has Bastion lost genuine interest in Johnny, he's also wavering about his big-money preacher Billy Sunshine. Sidney never really had a childhood, only a driving desire for success. When Johnny o.d.'s, Billy Sunshine calls him ""a brother of Jesus"" and a saint, while legendary crooner Guy Sonata sings ""Love Me Sweetly"" at the funeral and Johnny's literary nemesis and biographer, Abby Ashley, winds up shot by a grieving fan. Then things really get paranoid and explosive. The catalogue copy states: ""Should appeal to celebrity and scandal obsessed readers everywhere."" Such honesty by a publisher is truly rare and refreshing.