New Book Alert: The Oscar Goes To by Rob Santana; I'ld Like To Thank The Academy For This Psychological Drama Of Fame, Mental Illness, and Addiction
By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
Spoilers: After awhile movie awards ceremonies run together. The parade of celebrities dressed in the latest styles and wowing the red carpet. (Answering the cornball generic questions like "Who are you wearing today?" or "How does it feel to be nominated?") The host cracking jokes that are either genuinely funny, but mostly awkward. Nominees wait in anticipation as the winners are announced, either the odds on favorite or the underdog. Whoever it is usually will get criticized the next day by people swearing that they don't deserve it, even when the articles preceding the ceremony hailed that performance and film as the most deserving. Nothing kills a film's popularity or likeability faster than a win. It's an annoying paradox that happens every year.
Sometimes it would be a terrifying, but memorable experience if something happened to make the ceremony different somehow, something that goes beyond the event of Awards Night.
We may have that this year as chances are the Coronavirus pandemic will cancel most ceremonies or only make them available online. Not to mention the pickings for qualified films might be extremely slim, since theaters have been closed most of the year leaving Academy members to search online options like Netflix, Amazon Prime, or Disney+ for candidates. They willl possibly even promote movies, like documentaries and comedies, that normally wouldn't have a chance to get some credible noms. This could be a year where Hamilton's live performance, that aired only on Disney+, could be a potential nominee and winner.
When something like that occurs, the people in the auditorium and watching at home become aware in the grander scheme of how big life is and how these awards don't really matter. Something terrible happened that night or in the world at large and the accolades of their peers aren't as important as this contact with the rest of the world. These events remind us that the world isn't divided into rich vs. poor, famous vs. non, people receiving awards vs. people at home.
When that happens, we can be mindful of the fact that the famous are just like us, people who have been hurt and are suffering through some of the same issues that we are going through. The only difference is their problems are often out in the open in the often unforgiving glare of the spotlight that separates them from the rest of the world.
The spotlight sends the false message to the people out there, that because they are rich, famous, talented, and beautiful that they must be impervious to pain and that their internal struggles are meaningless, even when we are going through the same thing only on a more private and less well-known scale.
These themes are addressed in Rob Santana's novel, The Oscar Goes To, a darkly comic but heavily psychological novel about the trappings of fame and how one can suffer, especially when they have vices before their fame begins. Vices like a troubled past, addiction, or mental illness. Vices become magnified when fame hits them and they aren't ready for it. That is the conflict that is faced by Valerie Tippet, a nominee for Best Actress and Vic Gomez, co-nominee for Best Documentary Short Subject.
We learn right away that something happened on Oscar Night and Valerie Tippet is dead. We aren't given the exact details except that her death occurred at the ceremony and it ended prematurely as a result with some of the awards unannounced. Val's death startles everyone, especially Vic, who was looking forward to using his win as a means of wooing potential backers for future prospects, a win that never happens as he lost previously that night. However, he happens to notice Val dropped her diary on her way to the stage. Vic picks up the diary and the book becomes two plots. One is Val's struggles before and during a meteoric film career and instant fame. The other is Vic's obsession with researching Val's life putting his friendships, career, and health in jeopardy as Val becomes more important than any of them.
The book chronicles two people who are obsessed with fame and are unprepared for the madness that comes with it and the changes that it brings to them. The most obvious victim is Val herself. As Vic reads her story, he discovers a woman who was beautiful, talented, but insecure and troubled.
We enter her diary during her star struck teen years when she retreats from her bickering parents into the world of Old Hollywood films and acting roles. She goes through the proverbial false starts and theater roles, before she meets Milton Milan, a sleaze who promises her roles in adult films. She eventually hits pay dirt with a film role as Mary Todd Lincoln that wins her critical acclaim and yes an Oscar nod.
Her story runs parallel with Vic's. On that ill fated Oscar night Vic and his buddy, Eli Ramirez were hoping to catch the light of fame from a win for their short documentary on the day before 9/11. Unfortunately, because of the excitement of Val's death, their fifteen minutes of fame end prematurely with a loss no one remembered. So the duo have to get fame the hard way. Eli makes the rounds befriending and sucking up to noted Hollywood big shots, while Vic becomes obssessed with reading Val's diary. Vic keeps the diary from everyone including Eli as if wanting to keep Val for himself. Unfortunately, some dangerous people from Val's past become aware that Vic has the diary and chase after him before he can make the information from the book public.
It becomes apparent that as he learns about Val's story, he finds a kindred spirit, even falling in love with her. They both have difficulties in dealing with acquiring fame and are too troubled to deal with it once they encounter it. Vic is addicted to Codeine which he at first uses to treat headaches but then become addicted. He is consumed by the drug and his obssesion with Val.
Val also retreats into drug addiction as the whirlwind of publicity, parties, gossip, and the spotlight become too much for her. As she becomes famous, Val longs to find someone who sees through the public shell and understand and accept the real woman underneath, even if that someone is just a guy who sat in the row behind her at the Academy Awards.
The Oscar Goes To tells a tale that is found in several Hollywood stories and while Santana does not technically do anything new with it (except give it an extremely bloody and graphic ending), he makes the characters compelling as they search for a reality and acceptance that exists outside of a movie screen and a golden statue.
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