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Smash
Book by Kanin, Garson
522 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1980
19 people are currently reading
146 people want to read
About the author
Garson Kanin
90 books17 followersGarson Kanin was an American actor, director and writer, working both on stage and screen. He was married to Ruth Gordon, with whom he wrote several screenplays.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
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July 6, 2016I like most "industry" books, which tell stories while getting into the inner workings of a specific industry. Arthur Hailey is probably the best known of these writers (Airport and Hotel are probably his most famous works, but he also wrote Zero Hour, the script that was adapted into Airplane). I've also read Hotel Babylon and Fashion Babylon.
Smash gives a look at the development of a Broadway bound musical. Told from the viewpoint of the production secretary (a position where she's privy to much of the behind the scenes action), it starts with initial casting and leads up all the way to the Broadway opening (with previews in Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. along the way).
It was the basis of the TV series of the same name (though the concept, title, and the musical being based on a historical figure; Nora Bayes in the book and Marilyn Monroe in the TV series). The book does a decent job of exploring the industry, starting with casting, then the many drafts of the book, songs added and removed, drama with the prima-donna big name actress (only referred to as Star or She), fights between the producer and director, and so on.
I don't have the stage bug, but having read this there is no way I'd want to be involved in this industry. Of course, I felt the same way about fashion (Fashion Babylon), pharmaceuticals (Strong Medicine), and automotive (Wheels) after reading books about them. Just to be fair, I found the electric power industry (Overload), airport / airline (Airport), hotel (Hotel), and banking (The Moneychangers) industries quite appealing, and gained an appreciation for pathology (The Final Diagnosis). Police work (Detective), television news (The Evening News), and Canadian politics (In High Places, a book I didn't care for) rank somewhere in between them.
The book was published in 1980 and shows it's age. In particular, the theater people dismiss the attempted rape of the narrator almost casually (to me, ripping the pantyhose off a secretary against her will is a serious offense, whereas the guy merely offers to buy her a new pair and most of the rest of the bigshots treat it like the guy just made a pass at her.)
Smash gives a look at the development of a Broadway bound musical. Told from the viewpoint of the production secretary (a position where she's privy to much of the behind the scenes action), it starts with initial casting and leads up all the way to the Broadway opening (with previews in Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C. along the way).
It was the basis of the TV series of the same name (though the concept, title, and the musical being based on a historical figure; Nora Bayes in the book and Marilyn Monroe in the TV series). The book does a decent job of exploring the industry, starting with casting, then the many drafts of the book, songs added and removed, drama with the prima-donna big name actress (only referred to as Star or She), fights between the producer and director, and so on.
I don't have the stage bug, but having read this there is no way I'd want to be involved in this industry. Of course, I felt the same way about fashion (Fashion Babylon), pharmaceuticals (Strong Medicine), and automotive (Wheels) after reading books about them. Just to be fair, I found the electric power industry (Overload), airport / airline (Airport), hotel (Hotel), and banking (The Moneychangers) industries quite appealing, and gained an appreciation for pathology (The Final Diagnosis). Police work (Detective), television news (The Evening News), and Canadian politics (In High Places, a book I didn't care for) rank somewhere in between them.
The book was published in 1980 and shows it's age. In particular, the theater people dismiss the attempted rape of the narrator almost casually (to me, ripping the pantyhose off a secretary against her will is a serious offense, whereas the guy merely offers to buy her a new pair and most of the rest of the bigshots treat it like the guy just made a pass at her.)
May 4, 2013
I picked this up because I saw it referenced on the credits to the guilty pleasure TV series of the same name. The similarities are that they are both about putting on a show, and they are both titled "Smash." That would pretty much be it.
Once I accepted that it wasn't going to give me any insights--or any characters of the same name, even--I went ahead and decided to read the book just because. I have a history in theatrical productions, so I thought it might be fun to take a peek behind the scenes.
It wasn't.
The first person narrative left me less than connected with the story to start with; as near as I can tell the world is full of asshats and why the lead character, Midge, feels like she gets to be morally superior to them instead of lumped into the category of asshats is the only mystery in the book. That, and the stilted writing. Some of the dialogue between the secondary characters can be good, but anything dealing with her personal thoughts instead of "note taking" is just...awkwardly weird. Even more awkward is the descriptions of the lovemaking. The kind of awkward that makes you desperately wish you didn't know that somebody, somewhere, thought this was good writing. The kind of awkward that when you try to read an especially "steamy" excerpt aloud to your husband he finally says "Great. Not only was that NOT titillating, but I think I actually may just go ahead and follow through on becoming a monk."
I gave it two stars because the best parts are the production newsletters that occasionally have a small sliver of humor. But on the whole I wouldn't recommend it. Unless you're trying to stop an ardent lover from feeling too amorous.
Once I accepted that it wasn't going to give me any insights--or any characters of the same name, even--I went ahead and decided to read the book just because. I have a history in theatrical productions, so I thought it might be fun to take a peek behind the scenes.
It wasn't.
The first person narrative left me less than connected with the story to start with; as near as I can tell the world is full of asshats and why the lead character, Midge, feels like she gets to be morally superior to them instead of lumped into the category of asshats is the only mystery in the book. That, and the stilted writing. Some of the dialogue between the secondary characters can be good, but anything dealing with her personal thoughts instead of "note taking" is just...awkwardly weird. Even more awkward is the descriptions of the lovemaking. The kind of awkward that makes you desperately wish you didn't know that somebody, somewhere, thought this was good writing. The kind of awkward that when you try to read an especially "steamy" excerpt aloud to your husband he finally says "Great. Not only was that NOT titillating, but I think I actually may just go ahead and follow through on becoming a monk."
I gave it two stars because the best parts are the production newsletters that occasionally have a small sliver of humor. But on the whole I wouldn't recommend it. Unless you're trying to stop an ardent lover from feeling too amorous.
March 28, 2013
More like a 3.5. If you read this expecting a modern day soap opera made for prime time, you'll be disappointed. Smash is written as the detailed day-to-day notes of Midge, the Production Secretary. It reads more like a diary, and she is the focus of the story. The show itself takes a backseat to the working characters: a witty behind the scenes look at those putting the show together. I liked it a lot, but didn't quite love it.
April 28, 2025
Picked this up during my previous SMASH rewatch, but never had the gumption to start it since it's over 500 pages. Still, I was surprised how easy it is to consume. Dishy, occasionally funny, frank, maddening—it's a consummate beach read.
I'd heard the show basically takes nothing from this except the title and that proved to be true. However, the new Broadway show (unbelievably also at The Imperial just as the show within the book) supposedly inspired by the TV adaptation actually seems to take just as much if not more from this than the NBC series. Whole plot lines (firing the director, an unmanageable star, an understudy going on last minute and nearly becoming a star before the original actress returns to dash her dreams) seem lifted from here. While that production is a failure, I can see why they went back to this. There are major flaws in Kanin's work and lots of this has aged poorly, but the behind the scenes madness and the sharpness of his characters makes this undeniably fun to read.
Our protagonist, Midge, is some mixture of TV's Ellis and Broadway's Gen Z dope. She is at turns ambitious and shocked by what happens and I felt the latter a tad disingenuous. Kanin paints her as a sexually liberated and clever woman and that overall jadedness is at odds with her shock at the company's drama. They're different types of experience, I suppose, and Kanin is embarrassingly bad at writing a woman's inner thoughts, so her extreme characterization is the one element here I think is unforgivable. That said, while Midge is some kind of guy's fantasy, she does feel largely real outside of how much Kanin struggles to portray her coherently.
Much more effective are the theater types he uses to dramatize the production of Shine On, Harvest Moon as it comes together. Larry is a great character, clearly a nutty and somewhat pretentious artist, but someone who we love and respect because of how devoted he is to the show. When he's fired, it really is awful. Gene, Midge's lover for much of the novel and the play's sort-of writer, also a perfect picture of a certain type of older man. I don't know if Kanin is aware how damning the portrayal actually is, but that may be a product of the way that kind of person would be framed in a modern context. Art, the asshole producer, a great villain. The kind of powerful egomaniac we all know exists and love to see lose.
Most fascinating character is the actress at the show's center, who is only ever referred to as "Star" or "She". On one hand, she's a clear stand-in for Streisand, who Kanin directed in Funny Girl. Much of the novel's last act feels like him rehashing their relationship, painting her as a nightmare and himself as a genius. I side with Barbra and her instincts for her career prove Kanin is at the very least overstating his genius, but even so, his picture of her here feels petty. I do also wonder if he's not drawing some inspiration for that character from his time working with Jean Arthur on Born Yesterday. When Patti replaced Star on the second to last preview, I wondered if she was about to become Judy Holliday. I would also defend Jean to the death, but a lot of what happened here matches exactly what happened on that production.
Beyond the character work, Kanin does a great job of showing how a production evolves. How numbers are developed, changed and then—most devastatingly—dropped. How personalities from each department clash, manipulate or work together to create a finished product. Through Midge, he gets us to completely invest in Shine On, Harvest Moon's success and of all the things the Broadway production stole from the novel, the thing they most needed to take is that the show within the show SHOULD be a hit. I suppose in their minds it was more comedically rewarding (not that any of the comedy in that show is successful) to make all that work amount to nothing, but it's satisfying here to see that all the heartache was worth something. I guess you could argue that all shows involve this much drama and work and there's something poignant in continuing to strive for greatness, but it would have made this tome feel pointless.
It's incredible to me that there are 3 wildly different pieces of art called "SMASH" all roughly about the same subject and somehow all 3 are varying degrees of imperfect. The Broadway play, for me, is the least successful: an overwritten, unfunny mess that squanders fans' goodwill and fails to bring its incredible songs to the glorious life they deserve. This novel might be the best version except that its fatal flaw is that we can't see any of the show's numbers performed. Even in the way the dialogue is sometimes structured as if in a script, it screams to be performed. We can't see Star in all her brilliance and difficulty. We can't watch "Big Town" go from showstopper to also-ran. The TV show, despite its myriad flaws, has the advantage of giving us all that and more. Smash was often bad and messy, but when it worked, it was transcendent. That's Kanin's whole point here and even if the show ultimately has little to do with his original work, it is still the best version of this concept.
I'd heard the show basically takes nothing from this except the title and that proved to be true. However, the new Broadway show (unbelievably also at The Imperial just as the show within the book) supposedly inspired by the TV adaptation actually seems to take just as much if not more from this than the NBC series. Whole plot lines (firing the director, an unmanageable star, an understudy going on last minute and nearly becoming a star before the original actress returns to dash her dreams) seem lifted from here. While that production is a failure, I can see why they went back to this. There are major flaws in Kanin's work and lots of this has aged poorly, but the behind the scenes madness and the sharpness of his characters makes this undeniably fun to read.
Our protagonist, Midge, is some mixture of TV's Ellis and Broadway's Gen Z dope. She is at turns ambitious and shocked by what happens and I felt the latter a tad disingenuous. Kanin paints her as a sexually liberated and clever woman and that overall jadedness is at odds with her shock at the company's drama. They're different types of experience, I suppose, and Kanin is embarrassingly bad at writing a woman's inner thoughts, so her extreme characterization is the one element here I think is unforgivable. That said, while Midge is some kind of guy's fantasy, she does feel largely real outside of how much Kanin struggles to portray her coherently.
Much more effective are the theater types he uses to dramatize the production of Shine On, Harvest Moon as it comes together. Larry is a great character, clearly a nutty and somewhat pretentious artist, but someone who we love and respect because of how devoted he is to the show. When he's fired, it really is awful. Gene, Midge's lover for much of the novel and the play's sort-of writer, also a perfect picture of a certain type of older man. I don't know if Kanin is aware how damning the portrayal actually is, but that may be a product of the way that kind of person would be framed in a modern context. Art, the asshole producer, a great villain. The kind of powerful egomaniac we all know exists and love to see lose.
Most fascinating character is the actress at the show's center, who is only ever referred to as "Star" or "She". On one hand, she's a clear stand-in for Streisand, who Kanin directed in Funny Girl. Much of the novel's last act feels like him rehashing their relationship, painting her as a nightmare and himself as a genius. I side with Barbra and her instincts for her career prove Kanin is at the very least overstating his genius, but even so, his picture of her here feels petty. I do also wonder if he's not drawing some inspiration for that character from his time working with Jean Arthur on Born Yesterday. When Patti replaced Star on the second to last preview, I wondered if she was about to become Judy Holliday. I would also defend Jean to the death, but a lot of what happened here matches exactly what happened on that production.
Beyond the character work, Kanin does a great job of showing how a production evolves. How numbers are developed, changed and then—most devastatingly—dropped. How personalities from each department clash, manipulate or work together to create a finished product. Through Midge, he gets us to completely invest in Shine On, Harvest Moon's success and of all the things the Broadway production stole from the novel, the thing they most needed to take is that the show within the show SHOULD be a hit. I suppose in their minds it was more comedically rewarding (not that any of the comedy in that show is successful) to make all that work amount to nothing, but it's satisfying here to see that all the heartache was worth something. I guess you could argue that all shows involve this much drama and work and there's something poignant in continuing to strive for greatness, but it would have made this tome feel pointless.
It's incredible to me that there are 3 wildly different pieces of art called "SMASH" all roughly about the same subject and somehow all 3 are varying degrees of imperfect. The Broadway play, for me, is the least successful: an overwritten, unfunny mess that squanders fans' goodwill and fails to bring its incredible songs to the glorious life they deserve. This novel might be the best version except that its fatal flaw is that we can't see any of the show's numbers performed. Even in the way the dialogue is sometimes structured as if in a script, it screams to be performed. We can't see Star in all her brilliance and difficulty. We can't watch "Big Town" go from showstopper to also-ran. The TV show, despite its myriad flaws, has the advantage of giving us all that and more. Smash was often bad and messy, but when it worked, it was transcendent. That's Kanin's whole point here and even if the show ultimately has little to do with his original work, it is still the best version of this concept.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 31, 2020
I gave up on this book after about 200 pages. Garson Kanin wrote great screenplays, but not novels. The characters are two-dimensional and most are awful—exploitative, vulgar, and manipulative. Midge, the main character, is a production secretary for a new musical about Nora Bayes, famous for singing “Shine On Harvest Moon.” Although I guess the general concept for the tv series was borrowed from this novel, that’s about it. Midge seems equally interested in the show and her sex life, which gets pretty tedious. Kanin has some vaguely pornographic parts since Midge seems to be attracted to or have sex with multiple people, male and female, in the production. If one wanted to discourage someone from moving to New York and trying to get into show business, Smash would be perfect. Otherwise there are are better things to read.
October 17, 2020
I sought this book out because I liked the TV series and I was curious. (Well, I mostly liked the TV show for the musical numbers!) I read somewhere that the show optioned the book mostly to use the title, and that's probably right, because the only similarity is that both are about putting on a Broadway show. I thought the book was truly dreadful. It was almost impossible to keep track of the characters, and as others have noted, this book has not aged well at all. The sexual shenanigans are definitely from a pre-AIDS world and though at times the author tries too hard to be "feminist," the attitudes are extremely patronizing to women. The "steamy" scenes are also very male fantasy centered. Really hated the book and will not read again.
June 9, 2020
I wanted to like this book about the making of a Broadway musical, but it turned out to be one of the worst books I've ever read. I'm one of those who will usually finish a book once I've started it. I kept hoping it would get better. Not one character is likable. A group of vicious, selfish and shallow characters with no redeeming value. Makes me question whether I ever want to see live theater again. Yes, it's that bad!
August 17, 2022
Not what I expected at all. Recently watched both seasons of the TV series, but it is a far stretch to say that the series was based on this book. However, it was an insight into the day to day production of getting a musical to Broadway and that much was enjoyable. Some of the characters seemed to run together, causing confusion. It was okay overall but not highly recommended.
January 27, 2013
i read this back when it was first released back in the early 80's and picked it up again when I saw it referenced in the credits of NBC's Smash. About the only similarities between the book and the series is the title and that both concern a show trying to get to Broadway. After that, all bets are off.
I'm a huge fan of Kanin's writing �� he was the author of the brilliant Born Yesterday — but here, his style seems a bit dated and stilted. The reading was more of a slog than I recall, and I did have to remind myself that certain attitudes were viewed in a different light thirty years ago than they are today. The story itself is straight forward — a producer has a musical designed to be a star vehicle which he wants to take to Broadway. Our narrator is the production's secretary, who's bright, intelligent and eager to have a chance to be part of the theater world. We see everything through her eyes, including the various passes made at her by folks of both sexes. (Yes, in 1980, a lesbian encounter in a mainstream novel was a way of being "edgy".) Most of the characters live life pretty much at the top of their lungs, but I don't feel we actually ever get inside their skins.
The book is loosely based on the events surrounding Kanin's experience directing Funny Girl, down to the producer being married to a descendant of the subject and there being a biography the family had commissioned but was not happy with. Taken like that, there's a certain delicious tell-all aspect to the story, but unless backstage stories are one of those things you feel compelled to read, that might not be enough.
I'm a huge fan of Kanin's writing �� he was the author of the brilliant Born Yesterday — but here, his style seems a bit dated and stilted. The reading was more of a slog than I recall, and I did have to remind myself that certain attitudes were viewed in a different light thirty years ago than they are today. The story itself is straight forward — a producer has a musical designed to be a star vehicle which he wants to take to Broadway. Our narrator is the production's secretary, who's bright, intelligent and eager to have a chance to be part of the theater world. We see everything through her eyes, including the various passes made at her by folks of both sexes. (Yes, in 1980, a lesbian encounter in a mainstream novel was a way of being "edgy".) Most of the characters live life pretty much at the top of their lungs, but I don't feel we actually ever get inside their skins.
The book is loosely based on the events surrounding Kanin's experience directing Funny Girl, down to the producer being married to a descendant of the subject and there being a biography the family had commissioned but was not happy with. Taken like that, there's a certain delicious tell-all aspect to the story, but unless backstage stories are one of those things you feel compelled to read, that might not be enough.
October 18, 2012
I just did not feel this book. Smash is a behind the scenes look into the making of a hit Broadway show. I just really didn’t like it. The scenes seemed unconnected and the main girl just jumped all over the place. It just came of as something trying to be raunchy and provide a “show must go on” attitude but I felt flat reading it. With books I usually can remember what happened and retell it to you but this didn’t stick at all. As soon as I read it, it was out of my head. I’d prefer to hate a book more then find it just completely unmemorable. Disappointing.
March 3, 2015
The horrible NBC series, "Smash," was born from this perhaps more horrible book. It's the story of a secretary of an up-and-coming Broadway show, and that is essentially the end of its connection with the NBC show. The novel is very much dated--you can feel a very 1970s vibe in every encounter--and while I don't know the gender or sexual preference of the author, it feels very much like an older man's fantasy of a young woman's life. I give it two stars because I liked the idea and some of the twists were entertaining.
July 25, 2014
I'm not getting the hate for this book. I really thought it was a nice book about the inner evil, heartbreaking, degrading work behind the scenes of the theatre from a newcomer's point of view. Midge was made to be naive. Midge was made to hate how amazing talent goes to waste. Midge was made to be the reader's eyes into a world they themselves know nothing of. And length really isn't the issue. In my case, I wanted more, maybe until the Tony Awards. Just one thing it could have used less of was the overwhelming analogies to sex. But I guess you could blame the 80's for that.
June 8, 2016
A book sale buy because it was written by Garson Kanin (Ruth Gordon’s husband). It was a slow start…it didn’t really hook me. But I was interested in the workings of a Broadway play. All taken with a grain of salt of course. Well….for me this was ho hum…until Garson threw in a sex scene or two…. Where did that come from? I had to look at the author’s photo on the book cover, what a rascal. It did surprise me….
I did like some of the some story…I even started rooting for some characters and hoping the worst for others. So it was ok… Garson has certainly done better stories.
I did like some of the some story…I even started rooting for some characters and hoping the worst for others. So it was ok… Garson has certainly done better stories.
July 18, 2013
What a weird book. It's about the making of a fictional Broadway show in 1979, which is fascinating, full of backstage drama and demanding stars, but then also has some semi-random graphic sex scenes which seem very out of place. The endemic sexism of the time was also off-putting, though probably accurately reported. I've read this was a bit of a roman a clef based on Kanin's experiences working on "Funny Girl", but I don't know how much of it to take seriously.
April 30, 2015
I can't swear I won't go back to it out of morbid curiosity, but this book is pretty unreadable and I've given up. The writing is terrible, and frequently sexist as hell. When it actually deals with the behind-the-scenes stuff of a Broadway musical it's moderately interesting, but that story has been told so much better so many times (including on SMASH the TV show), why bother?
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