Let's Make a Deal,

Paulina Porizkova; I won't pretend to be a model and you won't pretend to be a writer.

Courtesy my pal Ivan, I got a copy of the Double-P's debut roman a clef (though she calls it a novel), A Model Summer. The good news: it's surprisingly readable. The bad news: it's also kind of cringe-inducing.

As our story begins, 15-year-old Czech-born/Sweden-raised, aspiring model Jirina Something-Unpronounceable is on her way to Paris after winning a model contest or some such crap. Right here we have the book's biggest problem: The protagonist is 15.

Paulina—I mean, Jirina—then goes on to have sex with several 30something (and older) men. Whether this kind of crap happens (which I don't doubt) or not, most adults are going to find this a tad unsettling—no matter how worldly or brilliant Paulina/Jirina is. Nobody wants to be skeeved on the beach—and make no mistake, if Jirina/Paulina were just three years older, and the nasty angles were raunched up a bit, this book would be right up there with Jackie Collins's latest, because Ms. Porizkova knows her way around a sex scene. Lucky Ric!

She might've succeeded in a different direction as well. If she had kept the protagonist at fifteen and geared the book more towards the tween/teen set, she'd have a great cautionary, (and glam) tale for the kids. But the thing is, Porizkova has literary aspirations that don't come close to matching her talent and so the book seems a tad unmoored—not filthy enough for us pervs and not clean enough for the kids.

Which I'm guessing is a result of Ms. Porzikova thinking of her book as literary fiction instead of something to be picked up in the airport and consumed over Piña Coladas. She makes her aspirations clear by having her 15-year-old stand-in toting around Kafka and arguing the merits of Russian literature with ill-informed adults. This kind of nonsense smacks of the kind of eye-rolling, trying-too-hard, intellectual insecurity you'd expect from a model, which is too bad because it makes the whole book kind of irritating.

But hey, it's a way better read than The Devil Wears Prada and that chick cleaned up, so what do I know.

Comments

[osisbs]

If she was really born and raised in Sweden then the chances that she can read Kafka are probably pretty good. Please keep in mind that public education is socialist counties is excellent and people who receive this education turn out literate, no matter how high their cheekbones are.
Texas, on the other hand....