Gone for Good - Hardcover

Childress, Mark

 
9780375400216: Gone for Good
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0375400214 ISBN 13: 9780375400216
Verlag: Alfred a Knopf Inc, 1998

Inhaltsangabe

Exhausted by the demands of fame and celebrity, folk-rock star Ben "Superman" Willis finds himself trapped on a mysterious tropical island following a plane crash, a place that he suddenly finds difficult to leave when the delights of escape wear thin

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Mark Childress was born in Alabama, grew up in the Midwest and the South, and was graduated from the University of Alabama. His articles and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Times Literary Supplement, Southern Living, and the Birmingham News, among other publications. He is the author of three children's books and four previous novels, <i>A World Made of Fire, V for Victor, Tender,</i> and <i>Crazy in Alabama.</i> He lives in Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica.

Aus dem Klappentext

novel, the much praised author of Crazy in Alabama gives us the wild, comic, and ultimately moving odyssey of a 1970s folk-rock star, Ben "Superman" Willis.<br><br>Superman has been riding a wave of success in the years since the Beatles broke up and rock and roll wore itself out. But stardom is not what he thought it would be: the only time he's truly happy is when he's up in his plane, flying alone to the next concert, his son Ben Junior stashed at home in L.A., and his wife Alexa--a former Miss Southwest Louisiana--following along in a bus down below.<br><br>One night, after a show in El Paso, he flies head-on into the adventure of his life. A fierce thunderstorm, an emergency landing in Mexico, and some mind-blowing dope send him thousands of miles off course to a perilous crash landing on a beautiful, mysterious tropical island--a vision of Paradise, and, on the beach, a remarkable female apparition.<br><br>Back home, Alexa and Ben Junior are stunned by the news of Su

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Superman Considers His Obligations

1972

Superman ambled onstage in his flip-flops, old holey jeans, the tattered sky-blue work shirt. He squinted into the blaze of lights with an uncertain grin, like a stagehand who has wandered past the wrong curtain to find ten thousand people standing and cheering for him. Superman Willis was famous, and so was that shirt. He had worn it for years, at every concert, in every album-cover photo. It was part of his image, indelible as the ink stains under the breast pocket.

His fans thought he must have a whole closet full of sky-blue shirts, identically tattered and stained, but in fact he had just that one. He never took it off unless his wife made him wash it, then he'd hang around bare-chested in the laundry room waiting for it to dry.

One time after a show in Milwaukee, a moon-eyed young girl offered him five hundred bucks for the shirt. "Sorry, darlin'," he said, "Superman's got no powers without his shirt," but when he saw her little-rich-girl disappointment he put on his most charming smile. "Tell you what, though, I believe we could make a deal on these pants."

He was part of the folk-rocker wave that rolled over America in the years just after the Beatles, when rock and roll wore itself out and people started buying the poetic crooners like Jackson Browne, Jim Croce, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, and . . . Superman willis. He got his big break at Monterey, 1969. For three years now he'd been hot, hot. The single of "Superman's Revenge" sold four million copies, a triple-platinum smash. "When Time Stands Still" won the Grammy for Song of the Year. Newsweek put his face on the cover with the words the new super-poet of pop spelled out on his cheek.

His nickname came from "Superman's Revenge"--not his best song, but the biggest hit of his career so far. The fans had started it, chanting "Su-per-man!" between encores. The name carried its own momentum. Entertainment-page editors couldn't resist writing headlines like "superman" soars at sold-out coliseum show.

He bought a mansion in Encino and a Beechcraft Baron B58P twin-engine six-seater airplane. He went to pilot school and began flying himself on his concert tours, high over America, one show at a time.

At first he loved being famous, loved the money and applause and drugs and girls and the fun. After a while it got to be the same fun over and over, and then it became the opposite of fun. There were only so many drugs and girls you could do in one lifetime--at least that was the theory, and Superman had been testing its limits for quite some time now. The only thing that got him truly high these days was to be up in the sky by himself, flying.

He would fly to someplace like El Paso, ride a limo to town, get up onstage in his sky-blue shirt with his Gibson twelve-string around his neck, and sing his twenty-two songs. When he was done, the local promoter would hand him a paper sack with ten or twelve thousand dollars in cash. Then it was back to the limo, fire up a doobie, and ride to the airport on a cloud as big as his head.

His real name was Ben Willis, but he wasn't Ben anymore--he was Superman, even in his own mind, when he was alone. Hadn't he learned how to fly? Wasn't he certain, on nights when the show went well, that he could deflect bullets with his bare hands? On those nights he felt invulnerable.

Tonight was not one of those nights. Superman had been on the road for six months without a break, riding the wave of his momentum. He was exhausted. His songs sounded forced and juvenile. He sang them with about one-tenth the effort he had put into writing them. He cheated his audience, and they didn't even notice. They danced in the aisles and sang along with the hits as if he were putting on one hell of a show up there. They transformed the darkened arena into a star field of cigarette lighters, each flame signifying the enthusiasm of one human being.

The only one not having fun in the El Paso Civic Auditorium was the man in the pool of white light at downstage center.

His life would be perfect, he thought, if he could disappear right now--keep the money, give up the career, and walk away from all the people: the fans, the band, the producers and handlers, promoters, roadies, groupies, hangers-on. His wife.

He knew it was a cliché to work so hard all these years and finally hit the big time, only to find himself with this restless desire to get the hell out of Dodge. But stardom was not at all what he thought it would be.

When he started out, he was Ben willis, a solo act. Each day contained at least one private moment of joy, a glimmering instant when he paused to reflect on his growing good fortune. Now, after all the years of hard work, those moments were much harder to come by. He was Superman, with

an entourage of thirty-three people--always a crowd around, never a moment alone unless he was up in his plane. Even then he'd be sailing along at nine thousand feet, over the heads of white clouds, and just about the time he got to feeling nice and alone, he'd remember the busload of obligations trundling along the highway, toward the next gig.

His wife Alexa was on that bus. Her fear of flying was one of the main reasons he had learned to fly. Alexa was a beautiful woman, a blond Louisiana beauty queen who had turned herself into a hippie-chick to please him. She would never win a prize for intellectual achievement, but she was lovely and long and so very blond. Everyone said they made a great-looking couple, which meant Alexa looked great and Superman looked better standing beside her. She had been at his side for most of his long grinding climb to the top, so she considered it her duty (and her reward) to be present for every moment of glory. She followed him to every city on every tour--always there, always watching him sing from just beyond the speaker tower. He rarely had a moment out from under her relentless gaze.

Alexa wore Puma Indian beads and tiny Janis Joplin glasses. She had this earnest way of nodding her head while you were talking, as if she agreed with every single molecule of what you were saying. Every so often Superman would gently suggest that she go home to Louisiana, take care of Ben Junior awhile, give her mother a break. That would start her crying--he didn't really love her, if he loved her he would ride on the tour bus with her instead of flying when he knew how it scared her, on and on like that nag nag boo hoo until deep in the night.

He knew this was only one of her acts, and not the best one. Underneath the sensitive hippie exterior, Alexa would always be Doris Marie French, the former Miss Southwest Louisiana, a woman of unanswered ambitions and strong jealousies. She was convinced that the moment she let Superman out of her sight he'd be helping himself to one of the succulent young things at the stage door. And she was right about that.

The Baron burst through a layer of fleece at ten thousand. Superman tweaked the dial. "Phoenix center, Baron four nine four Alpha Delta."

A burst of static was the only answer.

The popping and snapping warned of a big fat thunderstorm straight ahead to the west, in the ominous darkness beyond that curtain of blue velvet light.

Superman worked through the low-band frequencies, announcing himself to thin air. In this lonely corner of New Mexico, nobody seemed to be home.

The first flicker of lightning brought his eyes up from the panel. He stubbed out the joint, squared his shoulders, filled his chest with the air of serious purpose. Flying in weather was not the way to have fun. More than once he had put down at some hicksville airstrip and disappointed an auditorium full of fans to keep from flying through weather....

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Verlag
Alfred a Knopf Inc
Erscheinungsdatum
1998
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0375400214
ISBN 13 
9780375400216
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
369
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Knopf
https://knopfdoubleday.com

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