Reviews for Lombard Cavalcade

The average rating for Lombard Cavalcade based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-02-21 00:00:00 Robert Ferraro This review is of “Dynasty of Dreams” by Virginia Coffman. The book begins in France, July 1944. It is here that Jany Friedrich, the heroine of the book, lives with her brother, Carl. It is the time of the Nazi Occupation, and Carl is involved with the Resistance. Their mother, Olga Rey Friedrich, was a silent movie actress; she is now deceased. Their father, Kurt Friedrich, was also an actor, in anti-Nazi propaganda films. He later married Brooke Lombard, an American heiress. Later, Jany meets Tony Lombard, who, unbeknownst to her, is Brooke’s nephew. Tony is an assistant director to a famous Hollywood director, Leo Prysing. Tony is married to successful Hollywood actress Eden Ware, and they have a daughter together. He comes from a wealthy, old money California family. Tony is in France because his plane was shot down by the Nazis while he was trying to get war footage for a movie Prysing was filming. As they spend more time together, facing danger every day, Jany and Tony fall in love. This is before Eden and Steve arrive in France. Tony, Steve and Eden leave France to return to San Francisco. Soon after, Jany and Carl come to America; Carl for a specific reason: to find out more about Kurt, information that Prysing doesn’t want Carl to know. Jany decides to marry Prysing, not because she loves him, but to bury her feelings for Tony and to prevent Andrea from having a broken home. The marriage is not a happy one, as Jany still loves Tony. Carl, meanwhile, is obsessed with finding a film that Prysing made starring Kurt. This leads Carl to become an unwitting participant in a scheme by a vindictive woman, Stella Burkett, to destroy the Lombard family. A side result of this is Tony is investigated by the congressional Un-American Affairs committee for being a Communist. He is later cleared. At the end of the book, Prysing dies, leaving Jany a widow. Eden and Tony decide to divorce, leaving him free to marry Jany. Upside: Parts of “Dynasty of Dreams” are interesting. Ms. Coffman weaves actual history with her fictional characters well. Downside: Ms. Coffman chooses to devote less attention to the historical events and more to her dull, uninteresting characters, which was not a good strategy in my view. The only thing I felt for most of the characters is apathy, which is never a good thing. Storylines are hinted at, and never followed upon. Sex: There are a few love scenes, but they are very mild and not descriptive. Violence: A friend of Jany’s is shot and killed by a Nazi officer, who is later killed by the victim’s father. That’s pretty much the violence here. Bottom Line: “Dynasty of Dreams” had the potential of being a good book, but misplaced focus dashed that idea.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-07-15 00:00:00 Brian Mcloughlin This book was fine, but I didn't particularly enjoy it. I was certainly interested in the subject matter: living in paris, the expat life, culture clashes, etc. But the author's style is rather long-winded and unnecessarily dense; some passages reminded me of esoteric literary criticism I used to have to read in college, not particularly suited to light observational journalism. Perhaps I'm too critical as I just finished a Bill Bryson book of travel essays that were thoroughly entertaining and often LOL funny. I don't mean to say that I didn't like this book at all or that it was totally uninteresting. It just wasn't much fun. Another thing: Mr. Gopnik often reiterated that New York was really home. He lived in Paris five years, which is certainly long enough think of a place as really home, especially when that's all your child has ever known. So for him to keep reminding us that his real home was in New York and this Paris "experience" was just a temporary experiment, I, as an expat myself, felt this made his "expat" experience seem more like an extended vacation. It's a different mindset when you know that you'll be going back to your "normal" life, home, job, friends after a few years as opposed to leaving nothing behind and having no firm plans to return. I kept wondering if he would have seen and written about Paris differently if he wasn't on a temporary assignment but thought of it as his real, long-term home. Lastly, it felt very dated. So much of his experience was influenced by his job as a journalist, documenting of-the-moment events. Many times, I'd read something that seemed so off, but then I'd remember that he lived in Paris from 1995-2000. It may not seem like things can be so different in only 10-15 years, but they are.