A few weeks ago I received a book in the mail from it’s author with a
press kit and a note saying how much the author hoped I would enjoy his
book. “I liked it” would be an understatement… the book brought back
memories of my early passion for classic cinema and reminded me that
I’m not alone in my obsession with early cinema.
“Comfort and Joi” by Joseph Dougherty is a pleasure to
read. Not a single word is pretentious, not a single page
is overly pleased with itself because of an over-intellectual smug
evaluation of what movies mean to us. “Comfort and Joi” isn’t a
literary book that hides it’s message in overly subtle metaphors. It’s
a book that’s light while revealing the things I already loved in a
different way though someone else’s eyes.
“Comfort” is a love letter to an under-appreciated actress and the era
that she belonged to... his love for this actress is a means of asking
us to evaluate and understand our own enjoyment of the classics. The
book draws the reader out and engages our own memories and our own
thoughts of what movies mean to us.
Between “The Great Gatsby” and “The
Long Good Bye...”
Few have been able to write about what the cinema means to us with out
excessive psychoanalysis and even fewer have been able to get it right.
As demonstrated in his book “Comfort and Joi,” Joseph Dougherty is one
of those few who accomplishes the task of revealing what it’s like to
be an intense fan of a performer or motion picture while still having a
full life fully planted in reality. “Comfort And Joi” could have been a
fluff piece of fan-boy drivel that can be found elsewhere all over the
internet, but this book is smart and sentimental while being an
engaging “slice of life.”
Mr. Dougherty’s book is not a novel about imbalanced obsession. The
narrator of this book is one of us: someone with a career, a level of
success and a respect for people’s space as illustrated in a literary
device that demonstrates curiosity about other people while at the same
time keeping a respectful distance.
There are some moments that remind me of Harlan Potter’s monologue to
Philip Marlowe about artificial obsolescence in Raymond Chandler’s “The
Long Good-bye,” Mr. Dougherty writes about our culture’s obsession with
“bigger, faster, newer, more stylish” things while throwing away the
things and people that have already established a level of quality.
“Comfort and Joi” also reminds me of “The Great Gatsby,” in our duality
of trying to move on and accept the way things change while at
the same time trying to savor memories and subconsciously try to
turn things back to the way they were. I’ve also discovered that we are
all a bit like Jay Gatsby in the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel: "So we beat
on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past…”
trying to recapture some of our best movie experience.
“Comfort and Joi” also works on another level as an indictment and
condemnation of modern pop-culture… In his pages he revisits the Golden
Era of Hollywood and it’s steady decline as it develops new material
for the “faster, cheaper, dispensable” entertainment developed for
television.
This is also part biography, about how this actress Joi worked to get
ahead while maintaining an element of dignity, restraint and privacy
that’s obviously absent in the era of Pam Anderson and Britney Spears.
Look at someone like Joi Lansing, someone who played small rolls in
both major movies and forgettable ones but had more style and substance
then the vast majority in Hollywood today.
Like Real Life, Movies are about
People…
This book can best be summarized as a close friend
who you once knew long ago, last seen during the end of an era or at a
milestone like graduation… then seen again by chance after many long
years absence.
One of the messages I found in these pages is to treasure even the
slightest insignificant joys in our life and appreciate “the little
people,” like Joi Lansing. Like movies, we all have a central cast of
characters… but we also have ‘extras’ and ‘background people’. One of
the other significant messages of this book is to get to know those
‘extras’ and learn about their rich histories and stories. We’re all
background characters to someone else, and it would be better to
appreciate each other more like the stars that we really are.
I appreciate the memories that this book helped
bring back, but more important is the message that everyone is special
and loved by someone else, not to overlook or dismiss anyone.
You can learn more about the author and his book by going to his Comfort and Joi website and
links to where you can buy the book.