Niagara Falls All Over Again

Book 49 of my 2019 Reading Challenge

read from July 27 - 28

Niagara Falls All Over Again

by Elizabeth McCracken

Summary (via the book jacket)
published 2001

By turns graceful and knowing, funny and moving, Niagara Falls All Over Again is the latest masterwork by National Book Award finalist and author of The Giant's House Elizabeth McCracken. In it, she introduces her most singular and affecting hero: Mose Sharp - son, brother, husband, father, friend...and straight man to the fat guy in baggy pants who utterly transforms his life.

Born into a Jewish family in small-town Iowa, the only boy among six sisters, Mose Sharp couldn't leave home soon enough. By sixteen Mose had already joined the vaudeville circuit. But he knew one thing from the start: "I needed a partner," he recalls. "I had always needed a partner." Then an ebullient, self-destructive comedian named Rocky Carter came crashing into his life - and a thirty-year partnership was born. But as the comedy team of Carter and Sharp thrived from the vaudeville backwaters to Broadway to Hollywood, a funny thing happened amid the laughter: It was Mose who had all the best lines offstage. Rocky would go through money, women, and wives in his restless search for love; Mose would settle down to a family life marked by fragile joy and wrenching tragedy. And soon, cracks were appearing in their complex relationship...until one unforgivable act leads to another and a partnership begins to unravel.

My Opinion

4 stars

This book had a fun familiarity about it since I'm from a town right outside Des Moines so I recognized many of the places mentioned.  Either the author is also from the area or did a ton of research because street names, store names, the good sledding hills, etc. were accurate down to the last detail.

The end dragged for me because what I enjoyed the most throughout the book was the dynamic and the dialogue between the characters so when he was by himself it wasn't as entertaining.  All in all though, it was a good read that followed a thorough journey and ended satisfactorily if not necessarily happily.

A Few Quotes from the Book

"This story - like most of the stories in the history of the world - begins far away from Des Moines, Iowa."

"All my life I have partnered up with people funnier than me, smarter, better...What's the secret of your success? Live off the glory of others. They won't mind as long as you admire them."