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THE RELIABLE SOURCE
Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger
THIS JUST IN
The Decider has titled his book . . .
“Decision Points.” The George W. Bush memoir, to be released in November, will focus on 14 key decisions he made during his presidency, including “flaws and mistakes, as well as his historic achievements,” his publisher said in a statement Monday. Randy Quaid and wife Evi were arrested in a Santa Barbara, Calif., courtroom Monday after showing up two weeks late for their felony fraud case. The couple — accused of not paying a $10,000 hotel tab— repeatedly failed to show for hearings, and warrants were issued for their arrest.
Virginia is for lovers
(and two haters)
LOVE, ETC.
Ringless: Jesse
Jesse James
James, out of rehab but not wearing his wedding band, reports the New York Post. After a month of sex rehab in Arizona, the unfaithful biker returned Monday to his shop in Los
Angeles — but not to Sandra Bullock, who is also not wearing her wedding ring these days. Split: Swedish Princess Madeleine
Therese Amelie Josephine, 27, and
lawyer fiance Jonas Bergstrom, 31. The
youngest child of King Carl XVI Gustaf
and Queen Silvia broke off the engagement after a Norwegian handball player claimed she had a one-night fling with Bergstrom. The royal palace confirmed the breakup over the weekend; the princess flew to New York on Saturday — without her engagement ring.
Twitter to his fans: “Visiting family in VA. Ran into two old guys who must’ve been celebrating confederate history month. Told us to get our asses out of here.” “VAisForLovers,” he added ironically. It was another embarrassment for the state, still smarting over Gov. Bob McDonnell’s proclamation celebrating the history of the Confederacy that failed to mention slavery. Legend tweeted a few more details later that night: “The old racists were
A
few hours after singing at Sunday’s Earth Day Climate Rally on the Mall, John Legend sent a message via
BRENDAN HOFFMAN/GETTY IMAGES
Fredericksburg didn’t exactly welcome singer John Legend, shown at the Earth Day concert.
in a residential area in Fredericksburg. We were lost and they thought we were driving suspiciously so they pull up.” Legend asked for directions, he wrote, because he was visiting a new housing development that didn’t show up on GPS or Google Maps; he gave the address he was trying to find; the two men insulted Legend and his friends. Fans tweeted their response: “I would have shown you some hospitality. would love to know who dissed you” and “Where is Fredericksburg so we stay away?” And the tourism folks there weren’t thrilled to hear about it. “That
certainly isn’t our approach and not very beneficial to our brand,” Karen Hedelt told us. “We don’t want anyone to have a bad experience.” But maybe a tweet — even from a
celebrity who reaches millions with a few taps on a keyboard — is just a tweet. “I really don’t consider this a big deal,” said his rep Cindi Berger. “He Twittered about it. Nothing terrible happened. He’ll Twitter about something else.” Indeed, by the end of the day,
Legend seemed to have moved on, at least on Twitter: “Anyway, the DC concert was hot today. Great energy and great music. Peace and love to everybody.”
TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 2010
Roll out the red carpet for the stars
Justin Bieber
Every year it grows more surreal, the parade of Hollywood arm-candy enlisted as guests to the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, coming up on Saturday. This year the ever-shifting list ranges from Oscar winners Steven Spielberg, Kathryn Bigelow and Michael Douglas (guests of Time, ABC and Fortune); to It Girls like “Precious” star Gabourey Sidibe and Betty White (CBS); to random paparazzi bait — Justin Bieber and (just announced!) Jessica Simpson, both guests of People.
E-mail us at
reliablesource@washpost.com with your thoughts on who is most likely to: Get mobbed? (Like George Clooney in ’06, Sanjaya in ’07) Make headlines? (Ozzy Osbourne, ’02, Sheryl Crow, ’07) No-show? (Too many to recall . . .)
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In Australia, a real smack in the face
“T
by Brigitte Weeks
he Slap” introduces us to middle-class subur- banites in Melbourne,
Australia, struggling with too lit- tle money and too much alcohol. At a neighborhood barbecue, 4- year-old Hugo throws a tantrum, kicks a bad-tempered man named Harry in the shins and re- ceives in response a hard slap that “seemed to echo. It cracked the twilight.” The scene is set. Hu-
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go’s parents call the police and decide to sue Harry for child abuse and assault. But Hugo’s mother finds herself under pressure from her closest friends to back down and make peace. A friend can’t under- stand the furor over disciplining an obnox- ious little boy. “Hugo is a basketcase,” she says. “What happened on Saturday was a good thing.” Other friends line up on opposing sides, some even refusing to so- cialize with Harry. One claims, “He did something unforgivable to my friend and her son.” As this morass of hurt feelings deepens, racial prejudice against “wogs” and “bogans” (immi- grants, aborigines and the work- ing class) rises to the surface. The focus switches from one charac- ter to another in the eight sec-
tions of the novel. It’s a potential- ly confusing structure, but Aus- tralian writer Christos Tsiolkas is a master of seamless joints. While all these different char-
THE SLAP
By Christos Tsiolkas Penguin. 482 pp. Paperback, $15
acters are establishing them- selves as people we know more about than perhaps we care to, Tsiolkas navigates through his story with uncanny skill. One minute he’s an aging Greek grandfather; the next he’s an ado- lescent taking an overdose; he is young and old, man and woman, drunk and sober. He gets so close to his characters that the reader almost pleads with him to treat them more kindly. “The Slap” paints a grim picture of Aus- tralian society but with a kind of bleak honesty that invites trust. The central characters spend a great deal of time drinking “stubbies” (short beer bottles) and fighting with their spouses. “Australezi, what do you expect? It’s in their blood,”
complains one of the immigrant mothers.
“Discomfort is sometimes what is most precious to me about great art,” Tsiolkas recently told an interviewer.Using that criteri- on, we could call this great art, and in many ways it is. Domestic sniping and drunken quarrels are not the stuff of epics, but Tsiolkas makes his readers take notice and
ZOE ALI
AUTHOR:Christos Tsiolkas switches among many characters in his novel about a furor that results from a slap administered to a boy.
care. Redemption is always around the corner. A veterinarian who was at the disastrous barbecue is especially clear-sighted and self-aware. She evaluates both her one-night lov- er and her husband with cool dis- passion, setting commitment above romance: “This, finally, was love,” she realizes as she faces her husband across a restaurant table. “This was its shape and es-
sence, once the lust and ecstasy and danger and adventure had gone. Love, at its core, was negoti- ation.” Tsiolkas is a hard-edged, pow-
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erful writer, but glowing at the heart of all the anger among these feuding families are sparks of understanding, resignation and even love. Not surprisingly, “The Slap,” Tsiolkas’s fourth nov- el, has won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the Australian Lit- erary Society Gold Medal and been published to enthusiastic reviews in Australia and the Unit- ed Kingdom. In “The Slap” we live for a few
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short weeks in suburban Aus- tralia, learning the language, be- coming intimate with the charac- ters and experiencing their cus- toms. But finally the novel transcends both suburban Mel- bourne and the Australian conti- nent, leaving us exhausted but gasping with admiration.
bookworld@washpost.com
Weeks is a former editor of Book World.
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