Book Review: Off the Bookshelf

Even the Rhinos Were Nymphos

University of Chicago Press, 236 pp., $25

After writing screenplays and novels that have garnered storms of praise for decades (Splash, A Mother's Kisses), author Bruce Jay Friedman seems to be looking back and constructing a myth of his life by compiling some revealing nonfiction in Even the Rhinos Were Nymphos. Calling himself and his wife "The Jewish Scott and Zelda," Friedman writes prose that reads like the diary of a man surrounded -- and saddened -- by excess. In the title essay, he recalls his early days working as an editor for the so-called "men's adventure" magazines of the 1950s; it is this bizarre world that readies him for a life full of parries and glances with the rich and the famous. Though much of his work is punctuated with name-dropping and Hollywood gossip, Friedman strikes a human chord with his humility and outsider awe. One particularly effective entry is his "My Jerusalem," in which he details the alienation he feels as he visits the Holy Land too late in his life. When Friedman finally eases off the stars and the glitter, the book becomes worthy of the praise it expects.