Review: The Dakota Winters

Tom Barbash's second novel, The Dakota Winters, has nothing to do with the climate of the states on the northern border of the United States. Instead, it's a refreshingly candid look at the power of celebrity and the sometimes terrifying price it exacts.

Set in New York City in 1979 and 1980, the "Dakota" of the novel's title is the famed Upper West Side apartment building at the corner of 72nd Street and Central Park West. That building is home to comedian and talk show host Reginald "Buddy" Winters, his wife, Emily, and their sons Anton and Kip.

Twenty-three-year-old Anton, the novel's narrator, thinks he's there only temporarily, after a near fatal bout of malaria and amoebic dysentery he contracted while serving in the Peace Corps in Gabon. And he isn't the only member of the family in recovery mode. Buddy, who hosted a late-night talk show (evoking memories of Dick Cavett and his erudite program in the 1970s), is striving to rebuild his career after a nervous breakdown that featured an on-air walk-off. "It's genius until you break," he likes to say. To make the Winters' lives even more interesting, two floors above them live their friends, John Lennon and Yoko Ono. It's been nearly five years since John's last album, and he's in the midst of his own creative lull.

Through Anton's observant eyes, Barbash (The Last Good Chance) trails these characters around New York City in one of its dodgier eras, with a side trip to the 1980 Winter Olympics and a yacht voyage to Bermuda that turns from placid to terrifying in an instant. The smart and self-aware Anton becomes a creative muse to both Buddy--desperate to persuade network executives he's a safe bet for another show--and John, on the cusp of recording his final album, Double Fantasy, while wrestling with the steps he needs to emerge from his father's shadow. Hovering over all of this is a reader's knowledge of the tragedy that will occur at the Dakota on the night of December 8, 1980. It is an event that brings into sharp focus the sometimes dangerous intersection between the famous and the troubled, whose eagerness to feel the warmth of the limelight drifts into pathology.

Barbash has a keen appreciation of the gap between celebrities and those whose existence doesn't thrust them into the media spotlight. Described by Lennon as "a form of imprisonment, albeit a pampered one," the burdens of a public life portrayed in The Dakota Winters might discourage some readers from being too eager to trade their ordinary lives for those of their idols. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer

Shelf Talker: Tom Barbash's second novel is a smart glimpse, from both inside and out, of what the bubble of celebrity is like.

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