Rodgers. Copyright © MCMXXV by Edward B. Marks Music Corporation. Used with permission. MPL Communications, Inc.: Excerpt from “Beyond The Sea” (“La Mer”) by Charles Trenet and Jack Lawrence. Copyright © 1945, 1947 T.B. Harms Company. Copyright renewed 1973, 1975 Whale Music Company, a division of MPL Communications, Inc. International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission. Warner Bros., Inc.: Excerpt from “Autumn in New York” by Vernon Duke. Copyright © 1934 Warner Bros., Inc. Copyright renewed. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by permission.
Book design by Domini Dragoone
For Paul, Vicky, and Sarah
Three phases have succeeded each other during the span of my life. In the first the questions would be: “But who is she, dear? Who are her people? Is she one of the Yorkshire Twiddledos? Of course, they are badly off, very badly off, but she was a Wilmot.” This was to be succeeded in due course by: “Oh yes, of course they are pretty dreadful, but then they are terribly rich.” “Have the people who have taken The Larches got money?” “Oh well, then we’d better call.” The third phase was different again: “Well, dear, but are they amusing?” “Yes, well of course, they are not well off, and nobody knows where they came from, but they are very very amusing.”
—An Autobiography, Agatha Christie (1894–1977)
CONTENTS
The Problem With “The Book,” Part 1
The Problem with “The Book,” Part 2
The Third of July (Unbidden Aside)
The Foolproof Tableau Vivant Meets the Iceberg
Paradise Kisses and Smacks from Hell
La Jolla (Shuffle Off to Mexico)
Whoo, Whoo, Whoo, Whoo, Shuffle Off to Buffa . . .
New York, New York (The Mysterious East Lures the Innocent Virgin)
