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Up with the Sun
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Lowell Byers
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
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Up with the Sun
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Publisher's Summary
A WASHINGTON POST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • Through the curious life of Dick Kallman—a real-life celebrity striver, poisonously charming actor, and eventual murder victim—the unforgiving worlds of postwar showbiz and down-low gay sexuality are thrown into stark relief in this “page-turning blast” (James Ellroy, author of Widespread Panic)
"Engrossing…[A] keen portrait of 1980s New York…a pensive, often gorgeous depiction of…gay life in Manhattan before Stonewall and life on the cusp of the AIDS epidemic." —The Washington Post
Dick Kallman was an up-and-coming actor in the fifties and sixties—until he wasn’t. A costar on Broadway, a member of Lucille Ball’s historic Desilu workshop, and finally a primetime TV actor, Dick had hustled to get his big break. But just as soon as his star began to rise, his roles began to dry up and he faded from the spotlight, his name out of tabloids and newspapers until his sensational murder in 1980.
Through the eyes of his occasional pianist and longtime acquaintance Matt Liannetto, a tenderhearted but wry observer often on the fringes of Broadway’s big moments, Kallman’s life and death come into appallingly sharp focus. The actor’s yearslong, unrequited love for a fellow performer brings out a competitive, vindictive edge in him. Whenever a new door opens, Kallman rushes unwittingly to close it. Even as he walks over other people, he can never get out of his own way.
As Matt pores over the life of this handsome could-have-been, Up With the Sun re-creates the brassy, sometimes brutal world that shaped Kallman, capturing his collisions with not only Lucille Ball, but an array of stars from Sophie Tucker to Judy Garland and Johnny Carson. Part crime story, part showbiz history, and part love story, this is a crackling novel about personal demons and dangerously suppressed passions that spans thirty years of gay life—the whole tumultuous era from the Kinsey Report through Stonewall and, finally, AIDS.
What the critics say
A New York Times Editor's Choice
A Buzzfeed Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Read of the Year
Crimereads Most Anticipated Crime Fiction of the Year
Crimereads, “25 Historical Crime, Mystery, and Horror Novels to Look Forward To in 2023”
“A hypnotically readable book. . . . Mallon uses [actor Dick Kallman] to bring an era to life with satiric specificity—and he allows his main character enough insight to perceive his own flaws without having the will to fix them. . . . Mallon appears to have done considerable research for ‘Up With the Sun.’ His prose is imbued with the snark and sentiment of the showbiz world it describes—the legendary theaters, the hits and flops, the camaraderie, envy and ego. Also notable is the novel’s glancing but organic documentation of New York and Los Angeles gay society, from the discreet and furtive ’50s through Stonewall and the AIDS epidemic. Mr. Mallon seems to write scenes that have never been written before. . . . A vivid portrait.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Dazzling. . . . Throughout his writing career, Mallon has perfected the art of immersing readers in times past without making us feel like we're strolling through a simulacrum like Disneyland's Main Street, U.S.A. Unlike his anti-hero Kallman, Mallon never lays it on too thick. . . This sweeping novel takes readers up to the early days of the AIDS epidemic; an epidemic Mallon himself lived through. . . . As Up With the Sun nears its end, we readers realize AIDS is waiting in the wings, which makes the time we spend—even with the entertaining, yet obnoxious likes of Mallon's Dick Kallman—all the more precious.”—NPR