| "Maybe the Moon" is the audaciously original chronicle of Cadence Roth-- Hollywood actress, singer, iconoclast and former "Guiness Book" record holder as the world's shortest woman. All of 31 inches tall, Cady is a true survivor in a town where-- as she says-- "you can die of encouragement." Her early starring role as a lovable elf in an immensely popular American film proved a major disappointment, since moviegoers never saw the face behind the stifling rubber suit she was required to wear. Now, after a decade of hollow promises from the Industry, she is reduced to performing at birthday parties and bat mitzvahs as she waits for the miracle that will finally make her a star. In a series of mordantly funny journal entries, Maupin tracks his spunky heroine across the saffron-hazed wasteland of Los Angeles-- from her all-too-infrequent meetings with agents and studio moguls to her regular harrowing encounters with small children, large dogs and human ignorance. Then one day a lanky piano player saunters into Cady's life, unleashing heady new emotions, and she finds herself going for broke, shooting the moon with a scheme so harebrained and daring that it just might succeed. Her accomplice in the venture is her best friend, Jeff, a gay waiter who sees Cady's struggle for visibility as a natural extension of his own war against the Hollywood Closet. As clear-eyed as it is charming, "Maybe the Moon" is a modern parable about the mythology of the movies and the toll it exacts from it participants on both sides of the screen. It is a work that speaks to the resilience of the human spirit from a perspective rarely found in literature.
Annotation:
Cadence Roth is 31 inches tall. A former actress--she played a lovable E.T.-type character in a blockbuster movie in the early 1980s--she now is reduced to performing at children's parties. Cady documents the challenges and humor inherent in life as a little person, and plans her career comeback despite the obstacles that stand in her way.
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Author Bio| Armistead Maupin | | Armistead Maupin was raised in a highly conservative family in Raleigh, North Carolina, the son of a lawyer. He flunked out of law school, then worked briefly as a reporter for Raleigh's WRAL-TV, where his boss was Jesse Helms. Following a tour in Viet Nam as a communications officer, he returned there to build housing for disabled Vietnamese veterans, an effort which earned him a Freedom Leadership Award from President Nixon. Maupin attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; several years after graduating, he began writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, where he introduced his "Tales of the City" column, which vibrantly described life in a boarding house. In 1974 he came out publicly as a homosexual. Since then, he has been an outspoken advocate for the rights and visibility of gay men and women. |
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