A Hitch at the Fairmont by Jim Averbeck
2014; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 68; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/bcc.2014.0729
ISSN1558-6766
Autores Tópico(s)Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism
ResumoReviewed by: A Hitch at the Fairmont by Jim Averbeck Elizabeth Bush Averbeck, Jim A Hitch at the Fairmont; illus. by Nick Bertozzi. Atheneum, 2014 [416p] ISBN 978-1-4424-9447-3 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 5-8 After his actress mother runs her car off a California cliff, fatherless Jack is left to the mercy of his cold-hearted aunt Edith, who impounds all his and his mother’s belongings and whisks him off to her suite at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. There he makes the best of his new life as her dogsbody, fetching her chocolates, tidying her suite, cleaning up after her nasty pet chinchilla, and putting up with her persistent questions about any number codes he might recall from his mother. He returns from a routine errand to find Edith has disappeared, and since nobody in authority takes this seriously, he enlists the help of the guest in the suite next door, whom Jack recognizes as a maven of the mysterious: Alfred Hitchcock. Averbeck’s enthusiasm for the auteur shines in such details as chapter titles drawn from movie titles, references to Hitchcock’s work and life (or at least his own self-styled legend), and endnotes on the cited movies, with a spoiler alert regarding Hitchcock’s famed cameo appearances. However, none of this is successfully tied to the story of Jack’s predicament, and Hitchcock is an amiable gimmick rather than a character integral to the plot. Kids who have watched Alfred Hitchcock Hour reruns will make the most enthusiastic readers, but even naïfs will enjoy sniffing out the clues and puzzling out Nick Bertozzi’s storyboards, which open each chapter. Copyright © 2014 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
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