Be Frank With Me

December 15, 2015
When famous, reclusive author M. M. Mimi Banning is swindled in an investment scandal, she promises her editor a long-awaited new book in exchange for an advance to keep her afloat and an assistant to manage things while she's writing. Sent to fill that role, Alice Whitley discovers the job is more complex than anticipated. Her interactions with Mimi are icy, while her relationship with the mysterious, sometimes live-in piano teacher-cum-handyman is complicated. But Banning's nine-year-old son, Frank, proves her biggest challenge. Eccentric and brilliant, Frank endearingly bears the clothing and manners of a 1930s movie star, but his curt habits and odd paranoia take some getting used to and alienate him from other kids his age. Alice becomes increasingly close to Frank as Mimi's typing continues behind closed doors, but the more attached she gets, the more questions she has about the strange family she has stumbled into. Witty dialogue, irresistible characters, and a touch of mystery make this sweet debut about a quirky Hollywood family an enjoyable page-turner.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

May 1, 2016

Alice, a 20-something assistant at a New York publishing house, is sent by her boss to California to look after one of his clients, M.M. Banning (aka Mimi). Thirty years earlier, at the age of 19, Banning wrote a Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning novel that continues to sell a million copies a year. As far as anyone knows, she has not written anything since, but now, having been swindled by an investment advisor, she needs money and someone to help her keep her household going while she writes another book. So Alice arrives on Mimi's doorstep in Bel Air and meets Mimi and her nine-year-old son, Frank. Frank is an old-for-his-age cinephile with an encyclopedic knowledge of old movies and a penchant for dressing like characters in those same films. Mimi is allegedly working on the promised book, but she never allows Alice to see any of it, and Alice finds herself acting as a full-time companion to Frank. Despite early misgivings, she is drawn into the rhythms of their odd family, which includes a gorgeous young man named Xander, who shows up occasionally, teaches piano to Frank, and does odd jobs around the place and whom Alice suspects might be Frank's father.

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2016

Alice, a New York publishing house assistant, arrives in Bel-Air thinking she's going to help a famous novelist with her new book. Instead, she becomes the companion to the novelist's nine-year-old son, Frank, who not only loves old movies but dresses like their stars. Clever, thoughtful, touching, and at times hilarious. (http: //ow.ly/41KX305MyLb)-Sarah Flowers, formerly at Santa Clara County Public Library, CA

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from December 1, 2015

M.M. Banning, a reclusive one-mega-hit novelist now in her 50s and living in Bel Air, CA, with her nine-year-old-son, Frank, is in trouble. Brought to the brink of bankruptcy by a Madoff-like investment adviser, Banning is up against a deadline to finish her long-awaited second novel (she was 19 when she was skyrocketed to fame by the success of her first book). Banning needs an assistant to manage both her household and Frank, an eccentric genius who is a walking sartorial delight (inspired mostly by 1930s movies) as well as a whirling dervish with perilous tendencies. Banning's New York publisher sends his assistant Alice Whitley to the rescue. Alice's gifts for managing Banning's acerbically rigid demands and Frank's enormous behavioral challenges are beautifully inspired by her lovely heart. VERDICT Johnson's magnificently poignant, funny, and wholly original debut goes beyond page-turner status. Readers will race to the next sentence. And the next. Her charming, flawed, quietly courageous characters, each wonderfully different, demand a second reading while we impatiently await the author's second work. [See Prepub Alert, 8/17/15.]--Beth Andersen, formerly with Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.