An interesting and enjoyable read. This book seemed to be a departure from Jonathan Coe's usual style and subject matter and was a nostalgic look at the old world of movies. Written with real life characters in the form of Billy Wilder, director of many iconic films, and the filming of his penultimate film Fedora. The story was seen through the eyes of Calista an innocent young Greek girl who was drawn, by chance, into the world of the making of this film but without sensationalism.

A gentle sensitively drawn book, Coe obviously writes from an admiration for this character as the resultant book is totally engaging.

Fifty-something film music composer Calista looks back on her youth when, in the summer of 1977, she worked on the Billy Wilder movie Fedora and got to know the personable director.

I know - from the summary above you can tell it’s not a plot-heavy novel! But Jonathan Coe’s latest, while not as great as his last couple books have been, was a fairly interesting mix of fiction and non-fiction.

The way Coe wrote Wilder was easily the most enjoyable part of the book. He very masterfully brings to life someone I only know the name of - I’ve not seen any of his movies and, before I properly looked into this book, thought the novel was going to be about the actor Gene “Willy Wonka/Young Frankenstein” Wilder! - showing us his big personality, his wit and charm, warmth and intelligence. If a book isn’t going to be story-driven then its characters need to make up for that and Coe’s Wilder did just that.

It’s not just about the making of Wilder’s 1978 movie Fedora but also about his long and interesting life, starting out in Europe, finally selling a script to Hollywood, making his name there, and then coming back post-war and seeing the devastation of his homeland. And I think here is Coe’s main point of the book: about the difference between pre- and post-war film directors.

Wilder, in his autobiographical monologue (presented as a screenplay, which was a nice touch), talks about coming back to Europe after the war and being asked to put together reels and reels of footage taken from the Nazis’ concentration camps and, understandably, being shaken. Wilder’s known for his lighter movies and possibly dismissed at the time we first meet him - the late ‘70s - for not being as serious as the new wave of “bearded young men” like Scorsese and Spielberg.

Then he talks about trying to buy the rights to Thomas Keneally’s novel Schindler’s Ark, which was eventually adapted by Spielberg as Schindler’s List. But then Wilder says he wouldn’t have made as good a film as Spielberg anyway, and I think that’s because Wilder saw the raw footage of the Holocaust and was one of the first people to assemble it for presentation to the world. His reaction to such trauma was to keep it at arm’s length by making comedic, fun movies; Spielberg and the other post-war directors are able to so fully embrace darkness on film because they never had to face it in reality like Wilder did.

It’s a thoughtful point and, like the concept of this novel, makes me wonder what drove Coe to pursue it and turn it into this book. Movies have always been a feature of his novels so it’s not totally surprising but it’s still a strange choice. It is fascinating though to see a great public figure at the tail end of their career and life and seeing how they handle diminished fame and fortune.

The novel’s framing device of Calista in her 50s looking back is dull and makes for a slow entrance into the novel proper - I suppose it was needed to jump around in Wilder’s life to show him at different points after the Fedora shoot but it’s not terribly engrossing. Nor is much about Calista as a character - her film ignorance, her loves; eh, I didn’t care and her reciting film trivia word for word isn’t as funny as Coe thinks.

It’s also a very easy to put down book because there’s no real tension or overarching story that’s setting a pace and making you keep turning the pages. The Fedora shoot wasn’t dramatic or that special, though you learn that Wilder’s directing style was quite stiff - insisting that each word be read as it appears in the script with zero improvisation from the actor - which upset the lead actress in the early days of filming.

The book is very informative though. I knew nothing about Billy Wilder before reading it and now know a great deal about him both personally and professionally - and I’ll keep an eye out for his movies in the future and see what he was like as a visual storyteller.

Like the comparison of the two movies Calista goes to see towards the end of the book - Taxi Driver and The Shop Around the Corner - Mr Wilder and Me is not an exciting, dangerous story like Scorses’s masterpiece but more like the amiable and warm Ernst Lubitsch film, and deliberately so. Wilder loved Lubitsch and chose to make films like his - it’s fitting that Coe should write a novel about Wilder in the same vein.

And that’s what Mr Wilder and Me is: a thoughtful, pleasant read if not that compelling or memorable a narrative, with an excellent portrait of a larger-than-life film artist at its core. I liked it well enough but it’s not among Jonathan Coe’s best novels.

Perhaps best known for What A Carve Up! probably the most savagely and anti-Thatcherite book ever written, author Jonathan Coe's writing has always reflected his enduring love of cinema. This comes to the fore in this tale detailing the memories of a fictional female Greek translator as she recalls working with the great real life film director, Billy Wilder in the late 1970s.

I've enjoyed several of this author's work an this was no exception. He's so good at getting under a character's skin so you can really see what makes them tick. Also, the setting is so well told it's like you are there. Also a fascinating insight into the film industry.

I guess it was entirely inevitable that finishing Mr Wilder and Me would put me in a nostalgic mood. What I’d really like to do for the rest of the day is watch Billy Wilder films. Growing up, he was one of my favourite film directors although I’d only seen his comedies then, the appreciation of his more serious films came later. In this sense my own mood parallels the mood of Jonathan Coe’s book, where the protagonist, Calista, reminisces about her early 20s and the time she spent as an interpreter on a set of one of Billy Wilder’s later films, Fedora.

This is a lighter book from Coe, a love letter to life and career of Billy Wilder and Golden Age Hollywood. It is wonderfully researched and brought to life, especially Billy Wilder’s wartime experiences and his own nostalgia for the filmmaking of the bygone days. At one point, the aged director talks about how films should bring joy to the audiences and I can’t help but feel we all need a bit of that at present, a little bit of Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Irma la Douce and the rest.

And perhaps because Billy Wilder and his screenwriting partner I.A.L. Diamond are so well realised, I felt somewhat ambivalent about the narrator, Calista. She has some interesting observations about music and memory for example, that could have been taken further and her character could have been more fully developed. So a good book if a little imbalanced.

Three and a half stars and I’d recommend it to fans of classic Hollywood as much as to readers who’ve never seen a Billy Wilder film before. I urge them to do so at earliest opportunity.

My thanks to Penguin and Netgalley for the opportunity to read Mr Wilder and Me.

A very interesting book. It didn’t really grab me until about half way through when there was a section where Mr Wilder was retelling a story about the war.. that was very good and I was so immersed that I forgot where I was. I would definitely recommend this book.

Going back to something of the mood of his earlier novels this book combines Jonathan Coe the film fan with Jonathan Coe the biographer, Using meticulous research to recreate Billy Wilder and IAL Diamond as he imagines them to have been late in their careers. In itself, that is fascinating, and it makes you want to watch all their films, even the ones you had previously dismissed. There are some funny moments but the main character feels like a storytelling device and never quite leaps off the page as vividly as the filmmakers. There is a lot of love for their work here, and Coe gets to the heart of it.

Forget preconceived ideas of Coe’s style and subject matter and surrender to this book

Jonathan Coe, a fine and funny satirical writer on politics, culture and the state of the nation – The Rotter’s Club, What A Carve Up, Expo 58, Merrie England has here done something entirely different. All to the good, in my opinion. I have to say I had been somewhat disappointed in Expo and Merrie England, and felt the satirical mantle, the expectation of sharp and wonderful humour had become a bit of a burden

I was intrigued by this one, which seems to have been written from a completely different place – homage to the Golden Age of film, and particularly one of its directors, Billy Wilder,(Double Indemnity, Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Sunset Boulevard, The Lost Weekend) and the passing on of that age to more of one of high octane action, spectacle and shock rather than suspense.

This is writing from love and admiration. Not satire, not hagiography, but an absorbing and fascinating account of the making of his penultimate film, Fedora. This was at the time, unfavourably received, Wilder was seen as old fashioned, the mantle passing to a new generation of film-makers, Spielberg, Scorsese, Coppola (termed by Wilder ‘men with beards’ producing high budget films of action) Using at times words by Wilder, from interviews, public events, documentaries, books, Coe weaves an imaginary central character, Calista, a young Greek woman, eventually a composer of film music, into the real account of the making of Fedora.

Calista, now looking back from her 50’s to the time she spent as a naïve, gauche young Greek woman, originally hired as an interpreter and translator for the Greek set locations of Fedora, mirrors and contrasts some of the themes of that movie. The way she narrates her story and moves between now and then is very filmic

One of the things I absolutely loved about this is that though Cal is an invented character, and is connecting and having conversations with real characters involved in the making of that film, Coe is completely respectful of the ‘real’ characters and does not invent any relationship for Cal, with any of them, - no affairs, nothing seedy, untoward. He certainly doesn’t paint Wilder and his working partner, screenwriter Iz Diamond as saints, but there is no detailed invention or pulling apart of sexual relationships between real people. The choice, as narrator, of a young, naïve woman rather in awe of this unexpected milieu she finds herself in, makes this all work. She is an observer from the outside, not an unreliable one, but one with her own somewhat limited viewpoint

In with an absorbing story, Coe allows some wonderful reflections on the art of film, drawn from real events, often quoting some of the real protagonists

This is a kind, tender book. Yes there is gentle humour within it, - Cal’s youthful naivite provides some - but it is absolutely not the kind of comedy the reader might have come to expect from Coe.

Highly recommended

I absolutely loved this book from the first to the last page. Written with such tenderness, humour, pathos and insight it follows the story of a young girl who stumbles into a job on the film set of the late great Billy Wilder’s movie ‘Fedora.’ It helps if you love classic movies but is not essential- Coe captures the magic of a film set but his story is about those who make the pictures: the trials and tribulations of creativity, the effect of age and relevance, the haphazard nature of success and the shadow of the past hovering over all of us. Within a few pages the author makes us laugh out loud at Al Pacino ordering a hamburger and then twists our emotions as Wilder desperately searches for images of his Lost mother in old Holocaust footage. He’s also wonderful on male friendships, on the misunderstandings between parents and their children, on old age and infirmity. I could write a lot more but could not it justice. Will be buying this book for many many friends. Thank you Netgalley and Penguin for an advance copy,

I wasn't aware until mid way through that Mr wilder is a real person! I should have re read the synopsis before I started the book.
That said I did really enjoy the story and found the characters very engaging.

spoiler alert ** 3.5 stars

A book that really brings to life the Greek summer,the sunshine in Paris,life on a film set,and the real life of Billy Wilder.
There's a lot of film people and films referenced in this book,and luckily I knew most of them.
I very much enjoyed the bits set in the past,and almost wished present day Cali would stop interrupting .
A charming nostalgic look back on one of cinemas greats I think.

What an interesting book and so nicely written. I started reading it as simply a novel but after a while I sensed it wasn’t just a story - it was something more. The story is told by a young multi lingual girl who by sheer chance ends up meeting Billy Wilder and joining the film set of his movie Fedora. I knew Billy Wilder’s name but just noting else but this sympathetic telling of his story has made me want to settle down and watch fedora and more. I was thinking by the end ‘why has the author chosen this to write about’. Then I read the acknowledgments and I enjoyed the book even more. Thank you Mr Coe, a new lead to fun watching old movies! A lovely read

Revenge on Auschwitz

To paraphrase Billy Wilder’s thoughts: if everything is going wrong with your life, do you really want to go out to watch a movie called ‘Despair’?

For me, this novel was an absolute delight. I am one of a small number of people who loves Wilder’s film, Fedora, and a novel which revolves around its production would fascinate me anyway. Add a really attractive narrator, the half Greek, half English, Calista, courteous, intelligent, loyal, naïve, who is roughly my own age and captures so accurately the freedoms and insecurities of the late 1970s, early 1980s setting. Include the odd-couple relationship of Wilder and his long-time scriptwriter, Iz Diamond, their jokes and witty repartee. Refer to Wilder’s Austrian Jewish past, his loss of family to the Nazis, his horror and constant search for some record of them in the filmed footage of the death camps, and his reaction to Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, so close to perfection in its depiction that Wilder finds himself looking for his family there too.

This is a lovely book, clever, moving, utterly engrossing. Perhaps it is rather different in some ways from other Jonathan Coe novels, but I found it just what I wanted to read, enjoyable from cover to cover.

I found this novel interesting since, though I’d seen or heard of several of his films, I didn’t know very much about Billy Wilder as a director or about his personal life. All the detail we read here was fascinating for me - about Billy Wilder himself, his European roots, the actors and screenwriters he worked with and the mechanics of shooting movies.

I confess I didn’t take much else from this story. I can appreciate the points made about the style of movies from the first half of the 20th century compared with the in-your-face realism, and often brutality, of those made from the 60s onwards but I couldn’t engage overmuch with the kind of nostalgia we are invited to embrace here.

An entertaining read, lacking much of the humour I was expecting from Jonathan Coe in what came across as a heartfelt homage to the films of yesteryear and Wilder in particular.

You're never disappointed with a new Jonathan Coe novel in my experience. Mr Wilder and Me seems slight at first, in comparison with state of the nation novels like Middle England or The Rotter's Club, but it quickly reveals its quality and charm. Lots of family Coe tropes - film, music, reflection - coupled with a new reckoning with declining creativity and a wonderful and often hilarious portrait of Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond at the end of their careers. Aspects of the modern day narrative didn't quite come off for me, but it's still a wonderful book. Coe remains as consistent as he is under-rated.

I liked Calista's story and even more the one of the director Billy Wilder, also because it spans almost the whole of the 1900s and even though I am not a film expert, there are some titles that even I recognise. As usual Coe writes very well and makes us passionate about a story, which in some ways could remind us of Cinderella's fable.

La storia di Calista e ancora di piú quella del regista Billy Wilder, mi é piaciuta molto, anche perché attraversa quasi tutto il 1900 e anche se non sono un'esperta di cinema, ci sono dei titoli che persino io riconosco. Come al solito Coe scrive molto bene e ci fa appassionare ad una storia, che per certi versi potrebbe ricordare la favola di Cenerentola.

THANKS NETGALLEY FOR THE PREVIEW!

Jonathan Coe has always been an extraordinary writer; each of his books encapsulates a period of time whether it be in What A Carve Up and the greed of the 80s or more recently with Middle England and the fallout of Britain leaving the EU. Mr Wilder and Me - in a melancholic way- focuses on a period of film- making for Billy Wilder in the 1970s whilst interspersing his past triumphs and family tragedies.The story is told through Calista an interpreter who meets Billy by chance and finds herself as part of the film community during the making of Fedora. Calista’s journey explores her awakening to life and her attempts to understand Mr Wilder’s continual ,inner turmoil at creating the perfect film. Through the eyes Wilder- and Jonathan Coe’s extensive research, we understand the struggles for Wilder as he reflects on life and views the film industry pre and post world war 2 and how nostalgia and change can torment in the search for perfection.
A fascinating book that had me hooked and I devoured in two sessions -thought provoking about our own achievements and the passing of life and the world of fame

Mr Wilder and Me (2020) is the ever reliable Jonathan Coe's latest novel. It's utterly charming. I was engrossed from the off. The multiple, interconnected narratives are all absorbing however the main one, about the making of Billy Wilder's 1978 film Fedora is completely beguiling. If you are interested in cinema, and most especially the work of Billy Wilder, this book becomes even more enjoyable. By the end, somewhat predictably, I had a tear in my eye and a smile on my face.

5/5

I have always enjoyed Jonathan Coe's books and was keen to read his new one which is a totally original book largely recalling the life of the wonderful film director Billy Wilder and tells the story of Cal who worked for him back in the day.

The book is gentle, whimsical, nostalgic and thoughtful and will appeal to film buffs as well as those who relish an excellent story of family and coming of age .

This is an amiable novel that felt a bit inconsequential through much of its length as almost-sixty year old Cal recalls her youth when she fell into a job working for Billy Wilder. Film buffs will probably lap up all the insider gossip and details as Wilder is making Fedora.

It's only quite near the end that some kind of deeper meaning came into focus for me as two types of film-making, or creativity more generally, are brought into tension with each other: the turning away from pain approach of Wilder who used frivolity, comedy and humour to hold tragedy at bay, and the contrasting embracing of anguish, epitomised in the book specifically by Spielberg's Schindler's List, though directors like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola are name-checked too.

The 'now' story of Calista feels rather superimposed on the more interesting tale of her youth, and this is notably less funny than other books of Coe's that I've read: there's a whimsical moment when Wilder makes fun of Hollywood's obsession with sharks following the box-office success of Jaws but generally this is more warm and generous in spirit than hilarious.