Title: an oddity
Product review: Readers, like myself, expecting a book along the lines of "White Mischief" will be disappointed by "The Montessi Scandal." It is neither a true crime book, nor an academic study putting the scandal in the context of 1950s Italy.Rather, it is a hybrid--of history, linguistics, film theory, Marxism, Feminism, psychology--that anybody who has ever sat through a semiotics class will recognize. Karen Pinkus describes her book as a "screenplay" (it isn't) "concerning primarily the intersections of cinema, paparazzo photography, tabloids, feminity, and politics."Professor Pinkus is clearly very knowledgeable about Italian history and language: the book contains a solid description of the facts and characters of the case and any consideration of the Montesi scandal would be deficient without the secondary issues Professor Pinkus raises. But the book is an oddity outside the university.A well-researched history of the Montesi scandal is long-overdue.
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