The Rose

by Leonore Fleischer

A novel based on the screenplay for the movie starring Bette Midler and Alan Bates.

Genres: Fiction, Music

254 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Leonore Fleischer has written more than fifty novelizations of films. She and her five cats live in Upstate New York.

Reviews

[Gabriel Mero · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Rose is my favorite Bette Midler movie, so of course I enjoyed this novel. This book and movie tell the story of a tragic singer in the late 60s, heavily inspired by Janis Joplin and played to perfection by Bette Midler in her first starring role. The book follows the movie almost perfectly, but with the added bonus of extra material. I enjoyed learning more about The Rose's childhood and Rudge's, as well as Rose's early days as a singer and her time with Sarah. I miss book adaptions like this where you can hear the actor's voices and actually picture what's going on without the story being too convoluted.

[Krista · Rating 2 out of 5]

I generally enjoy movie novelizations, but this one was not good. The character of The Rose in the movie is obviously a stand-in for Janis Joplin, but Janis is never mentioned in the film because her family denied the filmmakers the rights to her story. However, in the novelization, Janis not only exists as herself, but is mentioned to have met and interacted with Rose after the two of them have both become big rock stars. This comes across as very odd because Rose's life history in the book is nearly identical to Janis's; she's an outcast from a small Gulf Coast oil town, gets discovered at the Monterey Pop Festival, she is described as wearing clothes, jewelry and feather boas identical to Janis's real-life costumes; has a disastrous homecoming visit after gaining fame; and at several points in the book, Rose's dialogue literally consists of Janis's own exact words that she said to reporters. It's just kind of a weird alternate reality. I prefer the film version where Janis doesn't seem to exist at all and Rose exists in her place instead; it's less confusing.

The book gives us lengthy backstories of both Rose and Rudge which we don't get in the film. This is typical of movie novelizations, however the backstories here are nothing but eye-rolling cliches. The writing is amateurish and laughably bad at times. There are several cringe-worthy sex scenes, and many, many, MANY descriptions of just how massively massive Rose's breasts are. (Having seen the movie first, I have trouble reconciling that attribute with Bette Midler.)

Lots of little details are wrong too. For example, the fictional town of Lawrence, Florida is supposed to be a stand-in for Port Arthur, Texas. But at no point in history has any Gulf Coast town in Florida had oil refineries or derricks. It's geologically impossible. Yeah I know Leonore Fleischer probably banged this book out in less than a week, and I'm putting FAR more effort into writing this review than she did to fulfill her publishing contract, but when a book is badly-written, wrong details can just pull me right out of the story.

Such as: when Dyer decides to drive away with Rose to Mexico, he starts driving south...from a Gulf Coast town in Florida. Look at a map. So...they were either going to drive right into the Gulf, or to Key West I guess? Oh well, they didn't get far before getting sidetracked anyway.

One of my critiques with both the film AND the book is that while they were written and filmed in 1979, they both explicitly take place in 1969. However the specific level of rock'n'roll excess depicted (including private jets and official merchandise with logos) didn't really ramp up until the early-mid 1970's. It's just not historically or culturally accurate for 1969. And one of Rose's "trademark numbers" is Fire Down Below, a song Bob Seger didn't write until 1976. I know I'm supposed to hand-wave the historical inaccuracies, especially in the novel's alternate universe where both Janis Joplin AND Rose are separate people who exist in rock'n'roll world, but little things like this bother me. (Not Leonore Fleischer's fault.)

[barbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

My psychologist lend me this book few months ago and I have had the greatest experience while reading a book.

I don’t usually imagine every scenario while reading, but this book completely teleport me into a new dimension. I specially like how it’s not always narrating the main character’s life but we also get into the life of any other characters as well.

I may said that I have cried a bit during the end too 😅 Great book. One of my personal favorites.