APRIL 5, 2007
A compelling memoir that captures an era
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 NONFICTION: Off the King's Road |
How can anyone resist a book that opens with Marlon Brando attempting to seduce the narrator while her husband sits beside her? Thus Phyllis Raphael had us at “hello” with her memoir, Off the Kings Road: Lost and Found in London (available now), a highly evocative account of a woman’s journey from Brooklyn to Hollywood and swinging London — at the apex of late ’60s grooviness.
In London, Raphael found herself suddenly alone after her film-producer husband (Robert Chartoff, best known for the Rocky franchise and Raging Bull) announced he was leaving her and their three children for an 18-year-old actress. Deciding to stay abroad, she multitasked between childcare, LSD, and sex. This milieu — the anything-goes hedonism, the limos, and first-class travel — has been captured before, but Raphael’s account of the British uneasily teetering between ingrained restraint and letting-it-all-hang-out is acute — hilarious and sad. Raphael is a talented writer, and she captures her heightened awareness of post marital–split life with refreshing vigor.
BUY Off the King’s Road: Lost and Found in London (Other Press; 312 pages; hardcover)
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