A Hole in the Head (1959) by Arnold Schulman ⭐⭐
This is a Gold Medal book, published by Fawcett Publications.
This was originally a play that ran at the Plymouth Theater for six months in 1957. It ran for 156 performances. The play was then turned into a 1959 film with Frank Sinatra, which is the reason the book was written.
This was a just ‘ok’ book. It was a little off-putting, since the boy is just eleven years old and the author kept talking about his sex drive. The main character, Tony, is a chaotic widower father, pretty neglectful, but still loving enough. He’s also a sex-crazed man who is creeping around with a tenant in his run-down almost empty hotel.
Throughout the book, women are referenced as broads or dames, which I can get past, since that was common terminology back then. Based on the details they keep giving about all the women’s forms, you’d think you were about to read a smutty book.
The above facts are a shame, because it’s actually a fine little story at the heart of it. It’s about a man who makes terrible choices, but loves his son immensely. He wants to make good, but thinks he can just get rich quick without working for it.
A lot of the story doesn’t make sense, really, but I didn’t think it was that bad. I did have a couple problems with it, though. First, it was written so strangely, like it was written in a dialogue that even the author didn’t know. Almost like he was trying to act like the characters were ‘cool’ or something. I had to re-read a lot of sentences to understand what was being said.
Second, it was really odd that they kept referencing Ally, the eleven year old boy’s sex drive and what he was thinking about the sexy women he saw. Like, who wants to hear that about a child?
This book was only written because they made the Frank Sinatra film, and thought they could drum up a few extra dollars with a movie tie-in.
Overall an ok book. If you want a very quick read, go ahead. It’s only like 120 pages or something like that.
