Kirkus Review of Our Place In Time
By the author of The Debutantes (1982): more febrile glop skimmed from the celeb/screen magazines--this time involving two famous sisters, one an actress/sexpot, the other an actress/Jackie O.-type. The story begins in 1927 New Orleans: Kiki and AngÉlique du Beaumond are born; Aunt DesirÉe steals divinely handsome husband Rory Devlin from mother Marie. Then it's on to N.Y., where the girls, society's darlings, make it on the stage and begin their lifelong love/hate competition. Kiki will be a smash in Hollywood as a Connie Bennett of sophisticated comedy; she services most of Hollywood's leading men (plus some sordid exercise with dirty Howard Hughes); she'll marry ""sweet but square"" star Brad Crawford. Meanwhile, Angel marries that rising politico Dick Power, who'll eventually be Governor and is aiming for you-know-what; but it's a dreadful marriage (Dick is overbearing, tight-fisted, ruthless, and sleeps around); Angel, forced to stay wed via blackmail, has a nervous breakdown. And things get even worse later on: Kiki divorces Brad, marries director Vic Rosa; Brad is killed falling (?) off a balcony; Angel marries--Why, Angel, why?--ugly, mean multi-millionaire Zev Mizrachi, an aging Israeli film tsar with a yacht; Zev puts Angel in his films, but she's miserable; Kiki's pretty wretched too--she's on the skids and appears (by trickery) in a porn film. But now Zev dies in an ""accident,"" so Angel is in a position to help Kiki--mired in some nuttery called the House of Cosmos--and also to reach out to longtime suitor Nicholas Dominguez. And it all ends with an Academy Awards dinner (both sisters nominated, of course). Loaded with sleazy talk and fancy eats, duds and digs: the usual international shlock, chugging from Palm Springs to Milan (all abored!) to Monte Carlo.