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- General fiction - |
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Crazy for Cornelia |
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 Crazy for Cornelia byChris Gilson Warner Books 345 pages, 2000 ISBN 0446525367 Reviewed by Julie Failla Earhart New Line Cinema has already purchased the film rights to Chris Gilson’s debut novel Crazy for Cornelia - but don’t wait for the movie. This is a well-written, fun, light-hearted novel that is sure to leave readers giddy. Twenty-year-old Cornelia (Corny) Lord is a wealthy New York debutante who wears two masks. One is the rebellious daughter of Chester Lord IV, CEO of Lord & Company, a prestigious investment bank founded by his great-grandfather, Chester Lord I. An overzealous photographer/reporter, Phillip Grace, who has nicknamed the headstrong young woman Corny the Crazy Deb decides to chase Corny for his column Debwatch in the New York Daily Globe. He relishes printing photographs of her at her worst - like standing in a soaking-wet cocktail dress in the fountain in front of the Plaza hotel. The other mask Cornelia wears is as the founder and benefactor of the New York Tesla Museum. Like her deceased mother, Corny is a devotee of Nikola Tesla, the actual inventor of modern electricity. Corny feels it is her responsibility to bring Tesla’s dream of free electricity to the world, and to restore the reputation of the man her family destroyed. The connection that Corny feels with Tesla manifests itself in her ability to see coronas around people. She also refers to the headstrong part of her self as the Electric Girl. Kevin Doyle is a struggling artist who aspires to create a neon statue of Saint Sebastian in tribute to his own recently deceased mother. But the neon sculpture has a crooked halo and refuses to shimmer like the works of Kevin’s teacher, Max. To pay the bills, Kevin takes a job as doorman to a building on Fifth Avenue. On his first day on the job, the unflattering picture of Corny in the fountain is plastered across the papers, and he sees the vulnerability in her eyes. Their two lives become intertwined on a cold, snowy night when Kevin saves Corny’s life. As the two get to know each other, they fall desperately in love. But hazards loom large. A scheme to take over the Lord’s fledgling company finds Corny confined to a mental institution, where Kevin breaks in to save the woman he loves. The premise may be an old one, but the characters are so well drawn and with such unique eccentricities that I didn't care. Crazy for Cornelia is the perfect summer book. |
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