Word: glaringly
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Joan Didion's fourth novel carries a few unnecessary burdens. There is the silly pink book jacket, the pompous flap copy ("a precise and pitiless exploration of lives lived in the harsh glare of public scrutiny") and, worst of all, the title, which is as ostentatious as that of the author's last novel, A Book of Common Prayer. Nor is the reader reassured when this most confident of stylists lodges herself as an extraneous character in the book, discussing narrative ploys that she has considered and rejected and alerting the reader to real or imagined difficulties ahead...
...patron with politically lib eral sympathies begins to orate, the bar tender-proprietor warns: "You start talkin' about niggers and America in here tonight, I swear you won't get another drink till winter. You understand?" Such moments surpass the contrivances of plot; surprise fades in the glare of recognition...
...TIME'S Los Angeles-based Show Business correspondent, Denise Worrell has often contended with the problem of gaining access to press-shy stars. "The hardest thing about reporting in Hollywood," she says, "is penetrating the thicket of people surrounding celebrities. Stars get heat rash in the constant glare of public scrutiny. If they do not have a thick skin, they get a thick entourage." Despite the difficulties presented by this fortress mentality, there is a need for it. Says Worrell: "Celebrities build barriers to protect themselves from the overcurious public. Unfortunately, a barrier can turn into a prison...
...svelte young man with black curls and two-lane grin who steps out of a Mercedes into the glitz and glare of Los Angeles' Melrose Avenue, wearing a bright red leather jacket with chain-mail yoke and 27 zippers, as, trailed by mother and manager, he goes shopping for clothes...
...Nixon's demise two years later rubbed some of the tarnish from McGovern's defeat, and McGovern's one-man-band campaign--he has little money and is the only candidate who refuses Secret Service protection--has buffed the sentimental glare to a shine...