Either the first half of the book is not as good as the second, or perhaps it just took me a while to get into the rhythm of the story, but I found the early stuff about vaudeville a bit uninteresting (I thought this was done better in "Carter Beats the Devil"), and it wasn't until they moved to California and started making movies that the story started to become more involving. The contrast between the larger than life funny man (Rocky) with the disastrous private life, and Mose, the straight man with the happy family was well done and very believable.

Although the story was sad, I didn't find it particularly moving, maybe I just wasn't in the mood.

Completed : 07-Mar-2003