Deadly Furniture

I was asked the other day what childhood book inspired me to pursue a job in publishing. After a spluttered moment when I panicked and thought about all those strange years when I wasn’t going to be an editor (I like to call them Rebecca: The Nurse Years), I realized that I had absolutely no idea. So I went to my fall back for most things book related, The Lord of the Rings, and smiled and nodded my way into another topic.

But the question has haunted me since. I feel like everyone else in the entire world has an answer to the question (although I will admit to not asking quite everyone yet. Busy week). But for me, when I was young, I was more interested in finishing as many books as possible in as short a time span as possible.

Funny side note: When I was in fourth and fifth grade, I started a book club during recess (I know. I was really popular). When a friend couldn’t keep up with me as I was reading Redwall, I sorta kicked her out of the club. That made me the only member. On the bright side, during this moment in time I was kicking-ass at any reading competition that my school library could throw at me. Read around Michigan? How about ten times! Read some Newbery Winners? How about all of them (even this one).

So in this whole time span, I doubt any books seriously moved me and inspired me towards a job in publishing. Instead, as it usually is with me, I think it was a memory.

My family lives in the middle of nowhere. Our small town (if you can call it that) has a single post-office and that’s practically our main attraction. So, whenever there’s a bad storm we always lose power and, because there aren’t that many of us, we’re pretty low on the priority list to return to civilization. But when I was young, whenever we lost power my family would all sit in the dark in our living room and my dad would read to us. And that’s how I heard the Chronicles of Narnia for the first time.

Of course, this is all over-the-top sentimental stuff that would be too much to bring up in serious conversation. I’m sure that I’ll stick with my Lord of the Rings answer if anyone ever asks it again (it’s safe and pretty true). But really, it was those moments in the dark as a storm blew outside where I was transported to a world of lions, magic, and summer that taught me the power of books. And that’s the first step into a job in publishing.

Because of my recent short-lived interest in Parenthood and because I just watched the complete series Sports Night, I have a strange affection for Peter Krause. It’s not a strong affection, but it was enough for me to watch Dirty Sexy Money.

And you know what, it wasn’t bad. In fact, I sorta liked it. Far from what the promotional material, title, and basic marketing scheme (MORE LIONS! MAKE THE POSTER LOOK LIKE WE’RE STILL IN THE NINTIES! THEY’RE RICH!) would make the average viewer believe, the first season of the show shows some acting chops and some actual story telling. In fact, I liked the first season so much that I actually stuck around for the second season. Which was a mistake. But I’ll come back to that later.

The “money” part of the title centers on the Tripp family. A wealthy dynasty worth billions, they’re everything that one would expect. Their family’s personal problems/frequent lawsuits/and general tight spot getter-outer, Dutch George, mysterious dies in a plane crash at the beginning of the series, forcing Dutch’s son Nick (Krause) to take over. Nick, of course, has spent all his adult life running away from the Tripps, but no one says no to Donald Sutherland. Besides, Nick may have just learned that his father’s death wasn’t an accident.

When the show wanted to (or perhaps when it stopped trying) it could actual create something very watchable. There’s an amazing scene between Krause and Sutherland when Donald learns that his wife has been having a forty year affair that is understated, silent, and right. Then there’s the character of Brian Tripp (Glenn Fitzgerald) who learns how to be a father to one of the most adorable little boys in the world. Those were the good moments that shown in season one. But then season two happened and the main plot took over.

And see, the problem is that the main plot never really works. Perhaps the show, canceled after its second season, never had enough time to make it work. Or maybe Blair Underwood, brought in to be a villain, wasn’t interesting enough (“Look. We’ll cast Blair Underwood. People like him, right? And….we’ll do something with his character. We’ll figure that out later.) And then there was the sense that, constantly nervous about cancellation, the show runners were frequently trying to switch things up to entice viewers to stay. Therefore, they sped up the end of Nick’s marriage so that he can start one with one of the Tripps; Donald Sutherland’s character stops demanding acting and instead wastes away ill-used; characters do complete one-eighties so that they become likable; (Look. We’ll cast Lucy Liu. People like her, right? And….etc…”). This all culminates in the second season episode called “The Facts” where the show runners just stop even trying and offer strange, off-putting mini-stories that don’t fit into the show’s overall cannon. Near the end there, I couldn’t help imagining frantic writers throwing out crazy ideas in the hopes that stranger stories would make everything better. But they didn’t stop being frantic long enough to realize that none of these ideas were any good.

Which is a shame. Because for that first season, Donald Sutherland and Peter Krause actually had something going there. It wasn’t dirty, it wasn’t sexy, it wasn’t really even about money. But it was pretty good. And then people panicked, and a show that had potential just became another cancelled show.