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A Way of Life, Like Any Other
The hero of Darcy O'Brien's A Way of Life, Like Any Other is a child of Hollywood, and once his life was a glittery dream. His father starred in Westerns. His mother was a goddess of the silver screen. The family enjoyed the high life on their estate, Casa Fiesta. But his parents' careers have crashed since then, and their marriage has broken up too.
Lovesick and sex-crazed, the mother sets out on an intercontinental quest for the right—or wrong—man, while her mild-mannered but manipulative former husband clings to his memories in California. And their teenage son? How he struggles both to keep faith with his family and to get by himself, and what in the end he must do to break free, makes for a classic coming-of-age story—a novel that combines keen insight and devastating wit to hilarious and heartbreaking effect.
Lovesick and sex-crazed, the mother sets out on an intercontinental quest for the right—or wrong—man, while her mild-mannered but manipulative former husband clings to his memories in California. And their teenage son? How he struggles both to keep faith with his family and to get by himself, and what in the end he must do to break free, makes for a classic coming-of-age story—a novel that combines keen insight and devastating wit to hilarious and heartbreaking effect.
155 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
252 people are currently reading
2924 people want to read
About the author
Darcy O'Brien
16 books40 followersDarcy O'Brien was born in Los Angeles, the son of Hollywood silent film actor George O’Brien and actress Marguerite Churchill.
O'Brien attended Princeton University and University of Cambridge, and received a master's degree and doctorate from the University of California, Berkely. From 1965 to 1978 he was a professor of English at Pomona College. In 1978 he moved to Tulsa, and taught at the Univesity of Tulsa until 1995.
O'Brien was married three times and had one daughter named Molly O'Brien.
O'Brien died of a heart attack in Tulsa on March 2, 1998.
O'Brien attended Princeton University and University of Cambridge, and received a master's degree and doctorate from the University of California, Berkely. From 1965 to 1978 he was a professor of English at Pomona College. In 1978 he moved to Tulsa, and taught at the Univesity of Tulsa until 1995.
O'Brien was married three times and had one daughter named Molly O'Brien.
O'Brien died of a heart attack in Tulsa on March 2, 1998.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 176 reviews
September 15, 2021
kind of eve babitz by way of james mccourt, even firbank. some glorious sentences ('my father had the anus of a man half his age').
May 23, 2025
enjoyed until the midway point, full review coming soon
February 1, 2019
They say you can't judge a book by its cover, but the glaringly tacky cover of this one (atypical of nyrb-classics) should be viewed as a warning sign.
There were things that might only annoy me, like a baseball game between the Los Angeles Angels and the Hollywood Stars (the latter wearing Bermuda Shorts) played at Wrigley Field (why would two L.A. teams play in Chicago?) where people stand in the outfield (no ivy-covered wall).* I believe there would be universal reading opprobrium, however, when the 15 year-old narrator, about to lose his virginity, offers: I had the best hard-on of my life.
But it was a quick read, minimally-priced, and even in a really bad book can exist a paragraph to remember, like this one about the narrator's father's cornea transplant:
My father was glad to give an eye for his country. Other men had made the ultimate sacrifice. and he was proud that the Government was paying for the operation, which was a complete success. His left eye was now that of a twenty-five-year-old female with a social conscience killed on the freeway, and so fiercely did the male eye compete with the female, that it discovered strength, matching youth in brightness.
_________
*Although the game featured Chuck Connors who was indeed a major league baseball player and a Hollywood star, most famous for playing The Rifleman, my favorite TV show when I was just a lad. So points for that. Goodreads friends Howard points out, correctly, that there was a minor league ballpark in L.A. called Wrigley Field. But I'll leave the review unedited as a lasting reminder that I'm an idiot.
There were things that might only annoy me, like a baseball game between the Los Angeles Angels and the Hollywood Stars (the latter wearing Bermuda Shorts) played at Wrigley Field (why would two L.A. teams play in Chicago?) where people stand in the outfield (no ivy-covered wall).* I believe there would be universal reading opprobrium, however, when the 15 year-old narrator, about to lose his virginity, offers: I had the best hard-on of my life.
But it was a quick read, minimally-priced, and even in a really bad book can exist a paragraph to remember, like this one about the narrator's father's cornea transplant:
My father was glad to give an eye for his country. Other men had made the ultimate sacrifice. and he was proud that the Government was paying for the operation, which was a complete success. His left eye was now that of a twenty-five-year-old female with a social conscience killed on the freeway, and so fiercely did the male eye compete with the female, that it discovered strength, matching youth in brightness.
_________
*Although the game featured Chuck Connors who was indeed a major league baseball player and a Hollywood star, most famous for playing The Rifleman, my favorite TV show when I was just a lad. So points for that. Goodreads friends Howard points out, correctly, that there was a minor league ballpark in L.A. called Wrigley Field. But I'll leave the review unedited as a lasting reminder that I'm an idiot.
September 29, 2014
Deceptively light and breezy memoir-charged novel of a teenage boy and his broken dysfunctional Hollywood family - mother a sex fiend, father a fat washed up star - its dry humor delivered by darting serpentine sentences evading a largely unspoken (though felt) emotional gravity. Set in the 50's (I think), but written in the 70's, it lulls you with a period propriety only to shed its gentlemanly nature to land a devastatingly funny "cock" or "fuck".
Bought this 11 years ago when in LA. Read this week upon returning from LA 11 years later.
Bought this 11 years ago when in LA. Read this week upon returning from LA 11 years later.
June 30, 2020
It’s not that it’s bad, it’s that I just don’t care.
July 5, 2013
Disappointed to be let down by this one; it sounded so up my alley. Another reviewer here has astutely observed that "the pleasure is all in the voice," but unfortunately, as the narrative progressed I found the narrative voice less and less a source of pleasure and more and more of, well, active annoyance.
To be sure, O'Brien's wryly detached viewpoint combined with his clean, crystalline prose style makes for several extremely arresting opening chapters, and the staidness of his perspective in the midst of what is essentially an endless madcap farce is a great part of the initial appeal. For this particular "way of life" pretty much entails mayhem among the eccentric moneyed classes as they cavort through a series of glamorous backdrops (Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Paris, Rome, and the like). In short, it's the is the stuff of the classic screwball comedies. But isn't part of the great fun of such stories is witnessing how the "straight man" (or woman, of course) get inevitably imbricated into the chaos swirling around them, to hilarious results? Think of, say, Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby, Jimmy Stewart in The Philadelphia Story, Jean Arthur in just about everything she did--it's more or less the relational premise of a great number of the great classic Hollywood screwball comedies.
But O'Brien never allows for even the slightest hint of being swallowed into the swirling chaos--not for a single moment. And so a lot of really interesting characters, situations, and anecdotes are all experienced at one remove, filtered through the perceptions of a petulant--if extremely articulate--teenager. There are moments of interest and insight, to be sure, but in my experience the narrative plateaued pretty early on, and even at just over a hundred pages, I found it a chore to finish.
To be sure, O'Brien's wryly detached viewpoint combined with his clean, crystalline prose style makes for several extremely arresting opening chapters, and the staidness of his perspective in the midst of what is essentially an endless madcap farce is a great part of the initial appeal. For this particular "way of life" pretty much entails mayhem among the eccentric moneyed classes as they cavort through a series of glamorous backdrops (Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Paris, Rome, and the like). In short, it's the is the stuff of the classic screwball comedies. But isn't part of the great fun of such stories is witnessing how the "straight man" (or woman, of course) get inevitably imbricated into the chaos swirling around them, to hilarious results? Think of, say, Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby, Jimmy Stewart in The Philadelphia Story, Jean Arthur in just about everything she did--it's more or less the relational premise of a great number of the great classic Hollywood screwball comedies.
But O'Brien never allows for even the slightest hint of being swallowed into the swirling chaos--not for a single moment. And so a lot of really interesting characters, situations, and anecdotes are all experienced at one remove, filtered through the perceptions of a petulant--if extremely articulate--teenager. There are moments of interest and insight, to be sure, but in my experience the narrative plateaued pretty early on, and even at just over a hundred pages, I found it a chore to finish.
October 17, 2025
A memoir fashioned like a novel which nevertheless reads like a memoir.
Darcy (known here as 'Salty') O'Brien was the son of actor George O'Brien (perhaps best-known for his dreamy hunk appearance in F.W. Murnau's 'Sunrise'). He had the misfortune of spending his formative years witnessing both his father's steady decline as a performer and his ex-starlet mother's mad-grab at attention, wherever she could get it.
The particulars of this coming-of-age focus are pretty standard, and not much distinguished by the fact that Darcy was touched by the rarefied Hollywood lifestyle. Like his parents, he is more or less on the skids - though somehow still a bit propped up by a glamorous past.
Darcy's remembrances are a mixture of hilarity and sadness - and he writes of them with the adroitness associated with the Auntie Mame tales of Patrick Dennis, only less gay in tone (this being a heterosexual view of adolescence). In fact, 'Salty' comes off like a much more likable Holden Caulfield.
He spends an inordinate amount of time zeroing in on an out-of-his-sexual / financial-league classmate:
Detached and sardonic, it's a chronicle that is strangely endearing.
Darcy (known here as 'Salty') O'Brien was the son of actor George O'Brien (perhaps best-known for his dreamy hunk appearance in F.W. Murnau's 'Sunrise'). He had the misfortune of spending his formative years witnessing both his father's steady decline as a performer and his ex-starlet mother's mad-grab at attention, wherever she could get it.
The particulars of this coming-of-age focus are pretty standard, and not much distinguished by the fact that Darcy was touched by the rarefied Hollywood lifestyle. Like his parents, he is more or less on the skids - though somehow still a bit propped up by a glamorous past.
Darcy's remembrances are a mixture of hilarity and sadness - and he writes of them with the adroitness associated with the Auntie Mame tales of Patrick Dennis, only less gay in tone (this being a heterosexual view of adolescence). In fact, 'Salty' comes off like a much more likable Holden Caulfield.
He spends an inordinate amount of time zeroing in on an out-of-his-sexual / financial-league classmate:
We had conversed in class, but all I really knew about her was that she shared my enthusiasm for Willa Cather's descriptions of sod houses in Nebraska.But most of his efforts are engaged in the ping-pong existence between estranged mom and dad; tolerant of both while keeping them emotionally at arm's length. He accompanies mom on some European adventures; his times with dad sometimes come with the added-plus of hanging out with Hollywood royalty like director John Ford - who often cast George in his films and harbored unique insight:
"The English had been worse to the Irish than the Germans had been to the Jews."Darcy would especially stick by his dad through some challenging times physically:
His left eye was now that of a twenty-five-year old female with a social conscience killed on the highway, and so fiercely did the male eye compete with the female, that it discovered strength, matching youth to brightness.Ultimately, the mom / dad tug-of-war lands Darcy squarely in his dad's corner:
My inquiries into human understanding had taught me that my father was as constantly constant as a rock and my mother was as constantly inconstant as the sea, and that wasn't much to go on. A rock as big as my father you could not throw, but you could hide behind it and rest in its shadow. When it fell into the sea, it sank.In 2001, The New York Review of Books (NYRB) came to this autobio's rescue, more or less saving it from obscurity. Whatever else it may or may not be, it is - in its own way - a compassionate look at a singular condition of arrested development. On top of that, the actual writing is dazzling; the observational skill is razor-sharp.
Detached and sardonic, it's a chronicle that is strangely endearing.
Read
February 16, 2023The best part of this book by Darcy O'Brien was the introduction by Seamus Heaney. That was a well-written and inventive piece.
And to think that O'Brien borrowed the title from Heaney!
Enough said.
And to think that O'Brien borrowed the title from Heaney!
Enough said.
December 13, 2015
...ma anche una storia come le altre e un narratore niente affatto speciale. Mi aspettavo di più da questo libro dalla copertina patinata e da una quarta in cui si paragona l'autore a Salinger.
Se c'è una ragione per leggerlo può essere solo per le descrizioni della vecchia Hollywood poiché lì sì, che la storia diviene intrigante in quanto fonte di atmosfere dimenticate.
I capitoli sono suddivisi per luoghi, ma manca un filo conduttore e ci si chiede cosa voglia raccontare e perché abbia sentito la necessità di scrivere. L'unico personaggio che merita è il padre del protagonista, ex star del cinema muto, ma non viene sviluppato e il protagonista, che straparla, è pure un meschino e mediocre ragazzetto...
Se c'è una ragione per leggerlo può essere solo per le descrizioni della vecchia Hollywood poiché lì sì, che la storia diviene intrigante in quanto fonte di atmosfere dimenticate.
I capitoli sono suddivisi per luoghi, ma manca un filo conduttore e ci si chiede cosa voglia raccontare e perché abbia sentito la necessità di scrivere. L'unico personaggio che merita è il padre del protagonista, ex star del cinema muto, ma non viene sviluppato e il protagonista, che straparla, è pure un meschino e mediocre ragazzetto...
September 29, 2011
When you think about it, there was never any good reason to expect that the two or three golden generations of the original Hollywood empire should have been at all cultivated, poised, sensible or even polite. They were the living definition of a "ragtag bunch" that succeeded, alongside a unimaginably explosive new medium, often on the vaudvillian talents of looking good, cracking wise, and having the nerve to try.
So it's not too surprising to know that quite often the practitioners -- whether actor, actress, or power-producer-- might well have had seismic cracks in not just their public personas, but in their ability to act like normal human beings. Add the scorch of the international spotlight, and unheard-of salaries, and you have a boiling little microcosm of petty, petulant and egomaniacal. Enter the children of the super priveleged pretenders .... What could possibly go wrong ?
Well, a fine line to tread, dissecting the egregious and the atrocious from the unintendedly humorous, and that's what O'Brien's book attempts. Too often surly and painful to be humorous, too often too-close-for-its-own-good, and entirely unsure of what balance to strike in order to hit on Satire .... this doesn't work out.
Try Nathaniel West's Day Of The Locusts, or Fitzgerald's searing Pat Hobby stories, instead.
April 28, 2012
The pleasure is all in the voice. This unshockable, worldly-wise Hollywood teen, with his droll perceptions about his once-successful parents and their rich, hi-gloss friends, is so well-drawn that he bears comparison with Holden Caulfield - and that's the highest praise I can think of. For me, though, the performance is marred by just TOO much ennui creeping in at the middle, and a jarring note of real bitterness at the end. If Salinger is Cote D'Or Burgundy, this is a $100 bottle of Californian Pinot Noir. But hey, are you going to say no to THAT?
April 15, 2017
Wow. 150 pages of dynamite. I indulged a long-held desire last year and ordered a
bunch of "collections" from NYRB Books, and one was the Hollywood
collection because I wanted to read Eve Babitz' book. This was in
that bundle, and since I'd never heard of it, I never really looked
at it. Bad mistake.
It's essentially a twisted bildungsroman about the son of two faded
Hollywood stars growing into teenhood as his mother and father --
divorced, of course -- hit the skids. O'Brien's parents were George
O'Brien and Marguerite Churchill, and no doubt they provided some
detail here, but he's far too clever for an only-the-names-changed
novel.
The unnamed protagonist starts off living with his mother, whose
drinking and sexcapades eventually land her a crazed Russian
sculptor, who makes models for Disney as a day-job, and makes erotic
statues based on mythology at night. Eventually, they go on a long
tour of Europe, sticking the kid with his father, whose career died
when he went into the Navy in WW II, and has since found solace in
the Catholic Church and his memories of the sea. His fortune was
embezzled by his brother, so he lives in poverty. Meanwhile, his son
realizes that his only hope is independence, and moves in with the
family of one of his schoolmates, a schlock director and his
horse-race-addicted wife. Turns out this guy's also got a bit of a
gambling problem, as the kid discovers on a trip to Vegas.
O'Brien's skill is seamlessly switching between tawdry, hilarious,
depressing and the kid's fairly rational responses to the absurdity
surrounding him. Furthermore, O'Brien's lifting from all sorts of
sources -- Seamus Heaney mentions loaning him a book he was
reviewing, an 18th century guide to raising rabbits, a passage from
which appears, almost word-for-word, at a point when the kid's
trying to get his father's apartment squared away. His skill at
doing stuff like this just amazed me, and it made perfect sense that
he'd be hanging with a Nobel Prize winner. He wrote a couple of
other novels, books on James Joyce and Patrick Kavanagh, a biography
of the Hillside Stranglers and another on Pope John XXIII's best
friend. Must've been quite a guy.
bunch of "collections" from NYRB Books, and one was the Hollywood
collection because I wanted to read Eve Babitz' book. This was in
that bundle, and since I'd never heard of it, I never really looked
at it. Bad mistake.
It's essentially a twisted bildungsroman about the son of two faded
Hollywood stars growing into teenhood as his mother and father --
divorced, of course -- hit the skids. O'Brien's parents were George
O'Brien and Marguerite Churchill, and no doubt they provided some
detail here, but he's far too clever for an only-the-names-changed
novel.
The unnamed protagonist starts off living with his mother, whose
drinking and sexcapades eventually land her a crazed Russian
sculptor, who makes models for Disney as a day-job, and makes erotic
statues based on mythology at night. Eventually, they go on a long
tour of Europe, sticking the kid with his father, whose career died
when he went into the Navy in WW II, and has since found solace in
the Catholic Church and his memories of the sea. His fortune was
embezzled by his brother, so he lives in poverty. Meanwhile, his son
realizes that his only hope is independence, and moves in with the
family of one of his schoolmates, a schlock director and his
horse-race-addicted wife. Turns out this guy's also got a bit of a
gambling problem, as the kid discovers on a trip to Vegas.
O'Brien's skill is seamlessly switching between tawdry, hilarious,
depressing and the kid's fairly rational responses to the absurdity
surrounding him. Furthermore, O'Brien's lifting from all sorts of
sources -- Seamus Heaney mentions loaning him a book he was
reviewing, an 18th century guide to raising rabbits, a passage from
which appears, almost word-for-word, at a point when the kid's
trying to get his father's apartment squared away. His skill at
doing stuff like this just amazed me, and it made perfect sense that
he'd be hanging with a Nobel Prize winner. He wrote a couple of
other novels, books on James Joyce and Patrick Kavanagh, a biography
of the Hillside Stranglers and another on Pope John XXIII's best
friend. Must've been quite a guy.
August 27, 2023
Oh what an unusual book. I chose this for the "Set in Hollywood" prompt in the PopSugar challenge. Written in 1977, as a coming of age novel for a young lad who almost seems the victim off "Hollywood" parents- a life not afforded by many; but packed with affluent weirdness. It read from the protagonists narrative, like an autobiography.
A slow burn that made me laugh, shake my head, feel sorry for the young man, and applaud his efforts.
3.5 ⭐️
A slow burn that made me laugh, shake my head, feel sorry for the young man, and applaud his efforts.
3.5 ⭐️
March 2, 2008
Since I live in Los Angeles, I am fond of tales about Hollywood life - especially from the 20's through the 60's - and this novel (or is it really a memoir?) is about a child being raised by a Hollywood couple during the golden era of Hollywood. It covers the high and low and is a remarkable book.
December 22, 2017
An amusing tale of growing up in a family that's at once sordid and absurd, with the added bonus that it takes place in an atmosphere of Hollywood hokum.
April 28, 2022
Coming of age in Hollywood, baby, what’s not to like! Darcy’s cast of characters is timeless, memorable, and so funny to read about. They walked so Gary Valentine and Cate’s character in Blue Jasmine could run. I could cast this book so easily. The dad. ❤️ Fun fun fun!
August 17, 2025
This was an unexpected treat, a really great book from start to finish. I laughed out loud many, many times. The author could have picked any of the characters to be the protagonist. He chose the perfect protagonist; a kid.
Wow. I may have to search used book stores for my own copy.
Wow. I may have to search used book stores for my own copy.
October 8, 2012
this dude didn't write many more books but he didn't have to. this is good as a million books.
December 20, 2021
sardonic take on growing up in Hollywood - hard to put down
January 31, 2024
Sad and sweet
January 5, 2024
socal catholic roth
June 26, 2023
This is a fictionalized autobiography of the son of a well-known Hollywood actor George O'Brien, who starred in F W Murnau's Sunrise, a number of 1930s Westerns, and a number of small parts in John Ford's later Westerns. What Darcy O'Brien brings to A Way of Life, Like Any Other is a sparkling sense of humor,not to mention a grown-up feeling of forgiveness for one's parents and their foibles.
There are dozens of Hollywood novels, but few with such a light touch as this one. You might say it is the exact opposite of Mommie Dearest and other tell-all assassination jobs by the scions of famous actors. This is a book that will make you smile most of the time, and laugh uproariously in about a dozen places.
There are dozens of Hollywood novels, but few with such a light touch as this one. You might say it is the exact opposite of Mommie Dearest and other tell-all assassination jobs by the scions of famous actors. This is a book that will make you smile most of the time, and laugh uproariously in about a dozen places.
June 30, 2013
O'Brien can craft a sentence well, and is able to strike a (for lack of a better term) readable tone, but I was left cold. He seems to want to make judgments, but refuses, and in the end this inability to find sense or grace, forgiveness or purposeful anger results in a striking tone of self-absorbed bitterness. Certainly that's a valid reaction to have to the delusional characters around him, but I persist in a (possibly outdated) belief that we don't read novels to just have a timeline of events and catastrophes presented to us, but in order to engage and develop feelings about the world around us. In the end, this reader was uninterested in reading about just a way of life like any other, but wanted to know how one meaningfully survives a particular situation, and that wasn't to be found here.
May 1, 2021
This had everything I personally needed from a book about family and old Hollywood. Written by the son of two faded stars of the silver screen, it has everything you might want. His mother is basically Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard but more alcoholic and more ruthless. Very entertaining. ‘May a flower bloom from her offal in Old Madrid and a sailor give it to his sweetheart.’ Whereas with his father something much more complex plays out; also a faded star of the silver screen his father uses religion and faith in his ex wife to get him through the day, but by the end the twisted relationship between father and son is much darker than the one between mother and son (which was pretty flipping dark to be fair.) just great.
June 24, 2014
A fun, quick, weird little thing. I would say it basically equates to: (Ask The Dust + Day of the Locusts)/Ulysses. That is to say, it's punchy and the tableau is totally juicy mid-Century Californiana, but there is the occasional Joycean flare. A couple of memorable scenes and a pleasantly off-kilter protagonist help it along. It will stick with you a bit, I bet.
November 29, 2014
Good fun, but I I'm not sure that I really understood his father. I was OK until the end ... would he really have stolen that ring? Or is the point that the son has become someone more like his hideous, selfish mother?
July 20, 2022
A really well-balanced work of craft, wit, and understatement. Genuinely funny in places, and eternally acerbic.
October 23, 2023
Can you imagine having Seamus Heaney write the forward for something you wrote?
October 30, 2023
DNF. I found it disturbing rather than funny.
July 17, 2024
Super easy read, love learning about this kind of time and place in history :))
Displaying 1 - 30 of 176 reviews