Montauk to Manhattan

June 1, 2024
A down-on-his-luck New York newspaperman hoping to make it big via a lavish TV adaptation of his novel stumbles into controversy. Jack Denton's fact-based book, The Life Line--about railroad tycoon Austin Corbin's theft of tribal land from the Montaukett Indians on eastern Long Island in the 1880s--hasn't sold many copies. But the story of Corbin's unscrupulous efforts to build a port in Montauk for "Mile a Minute" trains to Manhattan has captured the interest of Max Kirkland, a "genius" director with uncontrollable Harvey Weinstein-like traits. Hired as a consultant on the project, Denton attends location shoots, stargazes, frets over changes in his narrative, and sleeps with a disgruntled actress who promptly disappears. For Kirkland, her vanishing is the least of his worries. The Montaukett community is up in arms over the casting of a white actor to play the tribal hero and other cultural offenses. And Denton, who is covering the rise of Donald Trump and dealing with a busted marriage, has other fish to fry. While the individual pieces of Maier's novel unfold agreeably enough--even if Denton's accounts of the filming go on too long--they never come together in a meaningful way. And the Denton character has a serious credibility problem. He boasts about the awards he's won for his expos�s but never reveals any of the essential qualities he would need to be a standout reporter, including basic smarts. "Covering Trump for the paper these days has really made me think--where is this country going...?" Ya think? A novel set in "Hollywood East" that never figures out which direction to go.

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