Cinderella Liberty

by Darryl Ponicsan

1973 critically acclaimed best seller

Genres: Fiction

179 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1973

About the author

Aka Anne Argula

Darryl Ponicsan (pronounced PAHN-i-son; born May 26, 1938) is an American writer. He is best known as the author of the 1971 novel The Last Detail, which was adapted into a 1973 movie starring Jack Nicholson; and for the 1973 novel and screenplay Cinderella Liberty, starring James Caan. Ponicsan writes mystery novels under the pen name Anne Argula.

Reviews

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book the movie was based on.

It's all about bureaucratic bungling. It seems like there's more of it than ever, and the bureaucrats less accountable, but there aren't movies about it any more.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

1/28. Read Ch.1. Made me grateful that I did not join the Navy after high school. The description of the conditions in the head was disturbing.
1/29. Plugging away. It has a Catch 22-type feel to it. I am not overwhelmed, but I am enjoying it.
Reads like a book that was written to have a basis for a screen play. Disappointing. The movie was much better. Poncicsan wrote both; I'm guessing he had plot help with the screen play.

[Evan]

I remember my parents going to see this movie when it came out (1973). I finally watched it about 4 years ago and it was pretty good. The book is short, and I'm liking the fiction from this period, so let's see.

[Gerhard · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Baggs is a yeoman second class in the US navy. His life is driven by the search for his former boot camp commander whose inhuman handling of recruits (and especially of Baggs) has prompted an all-consuming need for revenge. A painful cyst he develops on board the USS Begonia is diagnosed as being of the pilonidal variety, and the indicated treatment is surgery as soon as the Begonia docks in Norfolk, Virginia. After preparing his own paperwork, Baggs presents himself at the Portsmouth Naval Hospital, resigned to the fact that he will be there for the next thirty days. But soon the original diagnosis is found to be erroneous, and Baggs can start looking forward to a discharge in seven days -- the time required to get the necessary documentation in order. As the days drift past without any mention of a discharge, Biggs is eventually put in the picture: his records have been lost or mislaid, which places him in the position of not being "there" in the official sense and as such not entitled to privileges such as drawing his pay or in fact being discharged from the hospital. So begins a life in limbo for john Baggs ...

In an attempt to compensate him for the surreal confinement to the hospital, Baggs is granted a cinderella liberty -- he is allowed a leave of absence every night, as long as he reports back by midnight. On one of these liberties, he meets Maggie Paul: a barroom worker (read prostitute) who fights a constantly desperate battle on the fringes of society to eke out a living for her and her three children. She takes Baggs home for sex: and from this point onward the well-meaning yeoman throws in his lot with this dysfunctional family in an effort to improve their meager existence.

Author Darryl Ponicsan describes the brutal world in which his characters operate with a wry and ironic style that fits his uncompromising material to a T. In places the aptness of the comic dialogue and the droll observing of everything from the positive attributes of cockroaches to the reactions of a dentist expected to render services for free, had me laughing out loud. But then at other times I was literally awash with empathy for these characters, and the desolate state they find themselves in had me swallowing uncomfortably to force down the lump in my throat.

This is an absorbing read -- gritty and raw, but shot through with tenderness when the story line demands it.

[David Partikian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Best known as the author of The Last Detail and Cinderella Liberty, Darryl Ponicsan is at his finest when relating a tale of pathetic Navy lifers. From the biographical details on the dust jacket, one can glean that Ponicsan got the hell out of the Navy after one tour of duty, thereby passing on the lifer bitterness that he relates so well; no “FTN” tattoo for the author, who must have relished the fame and royalties from having two of his novels turned into seminal films of the early 70’s. While lifer bitterness and fatalism is reserved for his main characters, we are lucky to have an author who even endured a couple of years in the Navy as an enlisted man; no one who never served as an expendable cog in the US Navy could relate such a tale and hold a reader’s attention. Cinderella Liberty is replete with the details of Navy life that make any reasonably intelligent sentient being cringe. Thus, reading a Ponsican book is like watching a bad peep show where a reader is just relieved that she doesn’t have to sit in room under a glaring bulb fingering herself. Or, in the case of a man, relieved that he doesn’t have to find meaning in life by being a surrogate Dad for the neglected children of a barroom floozy. Ponsican is no great prose stylist; his descriptions of the protagonist Braggs, who has no paperwork and is reduced to a non-entity, does not have even a whiff of the Kafkaesque, but rather simply portrays the awful bureaucracy and callousness of the US Navy, making it ripe film fodder.

Darryl Ponicsan’s Cinderella Liberty is one of the few books that works better as a movie. And Cinderella Liberty remains one of the better American films of the 1970’s. The movie substitutes Seattle for Portsmouth, Virginia rendering an utterly gorgeous film. Film students should study this book to better comprehend how to turn a mediocre narrative based on some horrifying real-life Navy minutiae into a classic film that withstands the test of time because it portrays an era and institution so well. Ponsican’s two early Navy novels have earned a spot on my maritime bookshelf particularly because they understand the enlisted navy world so well, which is, pretty much quasi-maritime.

[janey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cinderella Story

Poor Darryl, no matter what he wrote, it would be compared to The Last Detail, which was great. I'm looking forward to the movies. Both books have fully "fleshed," if we can pardon the expression, refreshingly irreverent characters that "stand up," if we can pardon the expression, in today,s world, if we can pardon . . . Ok. You get it.

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read it in the 1970's. Don't know how I would like it now.

[Bob Box · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in 1974. Sailor falls in love with a hooker while on leave. A movie with James Caan.

[Scott Parson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Story was unrelievedly depressing, but the interplay between some of the characters was nevetheless funny to the point of being Absurdist. I spent time in the Navy, and at its worst, it sounded just like the story Mr Ponicsan tells.

Hard to warm up to Maggie. Wondered how naive the sailor Baggs was meant to be.

Well written, and since Mr Ponicsan did the screenplay for the movie version, I wonder what he was thinking. It seems to be a very different story between the two versions. Still. I liked it. A good example of the kind of stories coming out of that era.

[Glenn Bruce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can't say I remember much of the book as it's been a long time; but I do remember enjoying it - probably not as much as The Last Detail, but still a decent book and a quick read.

[Kevin Downer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book. Disturbing on a lot of levels, with a nice quirky ending. Recommend it highly.

[Bender · Rating 3 out of 5]

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