Paradise

by Patrick Dennis (Pseudonym)

Paradise

Genres: Fiction, Humor

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Edward Everett Tanner III spent the last years of his life as a butler, in spite of having been one of the most popular novelists of the 1950s and 1960s. A bisexual, he had a wife and family, but also pursued relationships with men on the side.

Reviews

[🐴 🍖]

whereas the chatter surrounding love is blind proves that reality tv isn't dead; & whereas we're all, to some extent or other, currently stuck on a dinky little island, i'm proclaiming this the official patrick dennis novel of 2020. p-denz books exist on a continuum from sweet to vituperative. none are one or the other entirely but this one all but buries the needle at the vituperative end of things (certainly it's the only one i can remember having a body count). pulls off a neat trick by cataloging exhaustively the vulgarity of the inn's guests, which gets immediately dwarfed by the vulgarity of the tv peeps. could it have benefited from pushing things even a little further into chaos? sure, but if you liked how firm a foundation, check out this 12" remix version

[Sherwood Smith]

Some funny bits, but mean-spirited over-all. Once again an evil middle aged woman, this one modeled fairly closely on Mae West, is central, and a cast of fairly unlikable people.

[V. Briceland · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first started reading the novels of Patrick Dennis in my teens, Paradise—the story of twenty strangers in a vacation guest house, on a peninsula in Acapulco that becomes an island after a freak earthquake—was one I returned to again and again. I'd not read it in some thirty-odd years, though, and when I was scanning through the book's early chapters, I kept thinking, Why in the world did I like this novel? The characters are so VICIOUS!

And they are. Dennis's island is a microcosm of the world at large, and it's populated by drunks, and has-beens, and perverts (by 1971 standards, anyway), and fakes, and snobs, and the pretentious, and that darling of Dennis's satirical pen, the self-deluded. With Patrick Dennis, one expects a little acidity; the set-up for Paradise is a whole barrel of the sourest lemons.

Yet part of Dennis's point is to see which of his nasty creations can be purified in the crucible of tragedy. In the face of extreme adversity and an uncertain future, the best of the characters rise to the occasion, shed their bad habits, and emerge triumphant. Those who do not face a humbling end. In that respect, Paradise is almost New Testament-like in conception and execution, with its assortment of drunks, hookers, crooks, and weirdos scampering into the kingdom of heaven, while the author's Pharisees are very politely denied entry.

That he was able to predict so accurately a particular type of reality television subgenre some forty years before it appeared on the networks shows how in-tune Dennis could be with the entertainment industry, and how prescient was his own cynicism. Paradise is very much a worthwhile read, but the peculiarly mean satire in this next-to-last of Dennis's novels is guaranteed to leave a sour taste on the tongue.

[Nancy]

It was a joy to find a Patrick Dennis book that I hadn't read, and a bigger joy to love it.
I guess he was exposed to plenty of phonies, especially after he became famous, and he mixes them into his cast of characters very well, as always.
there is a fabulous moment when a heretofore polite gentleman rips into one of the phonies, ending up with: "You're not fit to lead pigs through shit!"
It also reminds me of one of the things I loved about Patrick Dennis when I first picked up my Aunt Anne's copy of "Little Me" at the age of 13: he drops so many names (Maria Felix and Dlores del Rio, whom I did know, and Rufino Tamayo, whom I didn't know) and so many expressions ("la jeunesse doree," "petite histoires," "the jet set of the middle class," etc.) that it is an education just to follow them up. Of course, many of these references go back 70 or 80 years at this point, but I don't care: I have always loved finding out things like what "The Miracle" and "Chu Chin Chow" were.
my favorite such line in this book: "In the shirts and slacks and sweaters that had been Salvador's, worn with all of her diamonds, Flossie looked a little like Tugboat Annie played by Magda Lupescu." what an image!

[Alvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dennis turns his delightfully jaundiced eye to a gaggle of expats.

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of Dennis's last books, Paradise suffers a little from his increasingly cynical outlook on life. The setting is a stylish hotel in Acapulco, run by socialite Liz Martinez and her husband Salvador; the guests of the hotel make up most of the zany cast of characters, who are usually funny, but more stereotyped than in Dennis's best books, and the plot is sometimes distressingly bleak. Still, the story moves along at a good rate, and there are laughs along with the grimness, so it's certainly worth reading if you're a Dennis fan.

[Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Patrick Dennis is such a creative guy – this book is about reality television written 30 years before the genre was on every channel every hour of the day! I am trying to read everything this guy wrote. I think this is one of his best – right after “Auntie Mame” and “Around the World with Auntie Mame.” While some of his other books are clever, this one is clever, well written with a cast of fun characters. Also the first of his that I'm aware of where there are gay characters, even though they're pretty stereotypical, who are out in the open and not "veiled."

[Muffy Kroha · Rating 4 out of 5]

He can't be beat!

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great Patrick Dennis book - great observation of people and an sharp and a wickedly good storyteller. Also laugh-out-loud funny.