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Ted Heller imagines the lives of comedy legends Vic Fountain and Ziggy Bliss—two very different men who come together in the oddest way in the 40s and 50s. Vic is a crooner who grew up in a poor, working family on the Atlantic coast in New York. Ziggy is the son of a vaudevillian couple raised basically on the stage of Loch Sheldrake in the Catskill mountains. Each man breaks their way into the business, fledgling as they go. Vic works with different bands and groups, singing for a living. Ziggy gains stardom as a comedian, making fun of his semi-famous parents and interrupting their show for big laughs. Circumstances bring the two men together, forming a show and hitting stardom. But show business is complicated, and as we know, show business teams like Fountain and Bliss rarely last a lifetime.

Heller brings these larger-than-life characters to life with crazy stories and strange companions. Although this is a book of fiction, and of course, it is because the antics of Fountain and Bliss are unthinkable, it is apparently loosely based on the lives of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis...who appear as characters in the book as well.

I was hot and cold on this one. Sometimes, it was very readable and interesting, and other times it was a bit too much for me...a little too much Hollywood with a bit of smut in there that I could do without. It seemed like the author wanted to show the characters doing the most vilest things a person would do in show biz. Possibly not that far-fetched but...it was an okay book but not riveting.