Novels by performing artists should have a warning on the cover: "Open at your own risk." Often the reading experience can be dismal (see: Chuck Norris, Marlon Brando), but occasionally the rewards can be worth the risk (musician Steve Earle, master storyteller Steve Martin). Fortunately, After Annie, a first novel by actor Michael Tucker (LA Law), is among the latter. Having paid his writing dues in nonfiction (including the memoir Living in a Foreign Language), Tucker brings an easy nonchalance and wit to his story of a middle-aged New York actor drinking away the loss of his longtime wife to cancer. Deep in his vodkas neat, he confides to the beautiful bartender, "I'm like a little baby; I tipped over my crib and... I'm waving my arms and screaming my head off, but there's nobody who can set me up straight again."
It turns out the bartender aspires to serious theater after doing bit parts in musicals. Olive and her career become Herbie Aaron's cause and his salvation. He hooks her up with his agent, who gets her into an upstate, but high-powered, production of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. Although Herbie runs off to Myrtle Beach to try to learn golf, he provides daily phone coaching for Olive--who has become both romantic fantasy and acting protégé.
There are no major denouements in Tucker's entertaining tale, but there are plenty of hands-on acting tips, backstage theater scenes and spirited sexual entanglements. "Write what you know" works well for Tucker, better than it has for many of his peers. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.