John Colleton (1907–1993)
Author of The Trembling of a Leaf
About the Author
Series
Works by John Colleton
Jill 2 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Marks, Robert W.
- Other names
- Ashley, Mark
- Birthdate
- 1907
- Date of death
- 1993
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Places of residence
- New York, New York, USA
- Occupations
- journalist
Members
Discussions
John Colleton in Erotica (November 2019)
Reviews
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Statistics
- Works
- 18
- Members
- 163
- Popularity
- #129,735
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 19
- ISBNs
- 53
- Languages
- 1
The story proceeds with the help of many embedded texts, primarily Amy's diary, in which the reader is offered the frisson of seeing through John's eyes Amy's private accounts of her early encounters with him, as he both indulges his own curiosity and uses the content as material for a screenplay. The screenplay draft itself is another component. There is also a snippet from a Bill Benton book (one of the other Cloris & Amy novels?) and various pieces of media reportage. Colleton flaunts some esoteric erudition with throwaway references to the Hashishin and Jakob Boehme in rather surreal news reports (214, 218).
Colleton succeeds in giving John a different voice than Bill, and I think I preferred it on the whole. John is conscious of his own unfortunate tendency towards dry academicism and defeats it fairly well. This younger narrator is however no less preternaturally fortunate in winning the attentions and affections of the women in the story. The eponymous Cindy is a former competitive diver and Las Vegas dancer who is being groomed as a candidate for public office, but she doesn't even get a mention until past the midpoint of the novel. As is typical for these books, a subplot (superplot?) makes hay out of moral hypocrisy in politics, and the ending is comedic with some incidental violence helping to tie up the loose ends. Published in 1981, it definitely reflects the US culture of its time on a variety of levels.… (more)