Legendary writer M.M. "Mimi" Banning hid herself away after feeling suffocated by the fame that accompanied winning a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award at age 20. The only piece of work the reclusive author has managed to produce since then is her son, Frank, a brilliant fourth-grader who uses smart 1930s garb—like pocket squares and wingtips—and facts about the movie business as armor. But after losing her fortune, the tetchy literary talent must write a new book ASAP. 

Enter Alice Whitley, an assistant deployed by Mimi's editor to travel from New York City to L.A. to make sure Mimi is working. But Mimi doesn't want Alice's help, and Alice instead finds herself tasked with being Frank's companion. Both taken with and frustrated by Frank's eccentricites, Alice can't help but be curious about the identity of the boy's father—and how his handsome, flirty piano teacher fits into the cloistered family's life. Meanwhile, Alice gently urges the frequently unpleasant Mimi to please, please finish her book.

In her debut, Julia Claiborne Johnson ably conjures a quirky cast and a privileged California world. Be Frank with Me is about being an outsider and the ways in which differences help others see the world in a new way. Like Frank, this offbeat story has a big heart.

 

This article was originally published in the February 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

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

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. VERDICT By turns touching, laugh-out-loud funny, thoughtful, and manic, this is a delightful novel that will appeal to teens who like their characters quirky and smart and their stories fast-paced and witty.—Sarah Flowers, formerly of Santa Clara County Library