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Jack Dann

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The Rebel: A Novel Kindle Edition

by Jack Dann (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.0 7 ratings

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With The Rebel, acclaimed award-winning author Jack Dann pulls James Dean from the twisted wreckage and offers him a second chance to make an indelible mark on his art, his culture, and his time in an era of profound change and devastating social upheaval.

Surviving the horrific crash that leaves him permanently scarred, both physically and emotionally, the haunted, brooding, and complex young star finds himself charged with a feeling of responsibility to do "something wonderful and important." Yet for Jimmy Dean, the glory road will be winding and broken, littered with the detritus of exploded dreams and destroyed love, as it passes through the holiest cultural sites of postwar twentieth-century America -- the genius-and-drug pumped world of the Beats, the protected inner sanctum of Graceland, the darkest shadows of Camelot. The lives and futures of Kerouac, Sinatra, Elvis, and the Kennedys will all be touched by him -- yet perhaps none so deeply as the fragile sex goddess who will always be his greatest burden and true soul mate, a dazzling and tragically lost phenomenon named Marilyn -- as he moves toward an astonishing destiny that will reconfigure the world.

Ingeniously blending historical fact with brilliant invention, The Rebel is a hip, fast, and mesmerizing ride through the fifties and sixties -- an unforgettable road trip across a nation with an American legend at the wheel.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Dann (The Memory Cathedral; etc.) stumbles with this dubious what-if novel about an alternate reality in which James Dean survives his 1955 car accident. Before the crash, Dann's Jimmy Dean is a drugged-out bisexual party boy, as obsessed with the possibility that the child of former girlfriend Pier Angeli is not his as he is distracted by midnight sexual escapades with Marilyn Monroe. Following his recovery, Dean's career predictably skyrockets while he vacillates between dreams of his Momma and passionate rages over Pier's fickleness. Unfortunately, even though he handily snatches roles from Paul Newman and Marlon Brando, Dean never appears on a set or in front of a camera in Dann's narrative. Instead, via Marilyn, he becomes involved with the Kennedys, and the novel descends into familiar tawdriness (playing, for example, with the theory that Bobby Kennedy had Marilyn killed in order to protect Jack's reputation as well as his own). As the tabloid-style narrative races along, Dann introduces a stupid and blond Elvis Presley, then glosses Hollywood and Washington politics in an inane manner, offering up highly improbable caricatures of now-deceased American icons. Dann shuffles actual events to fit his plot designs and suggests affairs between Bobby and Jackie and Jimmy and a pregnant Ethel Kennedy. Intended to be over-the-top, the novel too often is off-the-wall.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Driving fast on a California highway on September 30, 1955, actor James Dean plowed his Porsche Spyder into another car crossing an intersection and was killed. But had he survived, what would have become of him? An affair with Marilyn Monroe? Directing movies starring Elvis Presley? Or perhaps joining forces with Bobby Kennedy in politics? In Dann's parallel universe, Dean does all of this and more when he survives the accident. While Dean lies recovering in a hospital bed, he dreams that his long-dead mother visits him and tells him, "do something important and wonderful." It takes Dean years to fulfill her request, and along the way he gets drunk with Jack Kerouac, stars in the movie Cool Hand Luke, and punches Frank Sinatra in the jaw. Eventually, the tumultuous events of the 1960s--the struggle for civil rights, the killing of Dr. King--affect him, and he uses his celebrity to move into the political arena. The anticipation of exactly what will be the apex of Dean's political career keeps the pages turning. Jerry Eberle
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0014H3280
Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperCollins e-books (March 17, 2009)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 17, 2009
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1283 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 418 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #467,534 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #562 in Movie Tie-In Fiction
- #671 in Science Fiction TV, Movie & Game Tie-In
- #1,066 in Alternative History

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4.0 7 ratings

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About the author

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Jack Dann

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JACK DANN is a multiple-award winning author who has written or edited over seventy-five books, including the international bestseller The Memory Cathedral, which was #1 on The Age Bestseller list, and The Silent, which Library Journal chose as one of their ‘Hot Picks’ and wrote: “This is narrative storytelling at its best… Most emphatically recommended.” Dann lives in Australia on a farm overlooking the sea and “commutes” back and forth to Los Angeles and New York.

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Amazon Customer

A wonderful what if

Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2021

Verified Purchase

If you like James Dean and old Hollywood you'll love this book. I very much appreciated the wonderful appearances of Marylin Monroe and Elvis Presley. Wish the book kept going. And thank you for giving James Dean a longer life.

Reviewed in the United States on January 19, 2024

Non stop swearing from the first page. I deleted it immediately. I wish I could get a refund.

Helpful

Amazon Customer

intriguing what if fictional account of James Dean

Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2004

In 1955, James Dean loves putting the pedal to the metal until his speeding Spyder met a Ford at an intersection. Encouraged by his sweet dead mom to get off the ground so he will not catch a cold, Jimmy awakens at Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital and later is moved to Santa Monica Hospital. Jimmy slowly recovers, but mentally is no longer the same Rebel Without a Cause.

Jimmy leaves the hospital, but is hooked on Demerol. He leaves Southern California for New York, following advice he once gave Marilyn Monroe. In Manhattan, Jimmy meets merry prankster writer Jack Kerouac and dreams of directing meaningful films. Marilyn, who he protects from the jealous rages of Joltin' Joe, introduces Jimmy to Bobby Kennedy. When Monroe commits suicide Jimmy suspects Bobby was involved. They battle over her incriminating diary. Jimmy is now a rebel with a cause as he plans to take on the Kennedy gang knowing he could end up rather quickly joining Marilyn in the afterlife.

This is an intriguing what if biographical-like fictional account of the life of James Dean if he recovered from the fatal car crash. The story line is at its best when fifties and sixties famous people realistically interact with Jimmy. However, Jack Dann goes too far out with the High Noon confrontation between Dean and the Kennedy mob, making it feels more like fantasy. When Mr. Dann stays with the low level scandals even of high ranking people, fans obtain a fine tale of what could have been intermingled with happened.

Harriet Klausner

5 people found this helpful

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Marshallj Bean

Rebel- A story of Cosmic Imagination.

Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2013

Verified Purchase

This story is One of a Kind. Tremendously Inspirational story.
This one`s a real winner in my book. Red Hot. MarshallB.