Jonathan Coe_72
Expectations were high, because I loved 'What a Carve Up' and 'The House of Sleep'. But 'Mr Wilder & Me'—Jonathan Coe on film director Billy Wilder's later years, told from the perspective of a very young Greek composer—was pretty, clever and contained, and left me wanting something sharper. Regardless, it's worth reading for the beautiful prose, delicious observations of the movie industry in the late 1970s, and - for which it should be famous—a brilliant Wilderesque screenplay slipped into the book two thirds of the way through; an unexpected treat.