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320 pages, Hardcover
First published October 29, 2013
So you like Downton Abbey or Sherlock. Maybe even Call the Midwife, if you’re a bit sleepy and don’t mind the pacing. But what about Rebecca Eaton? Do you know who she is, or what her relationship is to these new but instant classics for anglophiles in America? If you’re like me and enjoy figuring out how things work––after all, I did watch every single extra feature in my boxed set extended edition Lord of the Rings DVDs––then there’s a dash of built-in appeal to a book like Eaton’s Making Masterpiece, ostensibly a book about how she, as executive producer for both Masterpiece Classic and Mystery! somehow ... well ... made the shows happen. And let’s face it, who doesn’t want to read about real-life interactions with stars like Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Kenneth Brannagh, Emma Thompson, and Maggie Smith?
The truth of the matter, as revealed in Eaton’s book, is far less glamorous. I might even add, with a touch of hesitation, that it’s far more boring than it should be.
Eaton’s book suffers from two fatal flaws, both of which stem from one gargantuan root cause: a misunderstanding of what a good nonfiction book actually is. The flaws, as I see them, are actually clumps of finer problems, gathered loosely into the categories of ‘jumbled content’ and ‘slapdash framing.’ It doesn’t particularly help that Eaton knows of these flaws, and actually draws attention to them in her introduction and repeatedly throughout the book itself.
It’s not as though the book doesn’t have potential. I love a good snippet of green-room gossip and hand-wringing over money troubles as much as the next romantic sap, but I don’t find that there’s much more going on here. The book never pulls together, so to speak. I found it impossible to know what was coming next, chronologically, or even to look back and understand what had happened in the previous chapter. Information, tidbits of stories––they just come at the reader from all angles, launched willy-nilly into the unknown in some sort of continuous stream-of-consciousness infodump. Is this a book about Eaton’s difficulties juggling work and family? Or is it about her difficulties raising money for Masterpiece? And where will we find any sort of reflection on the actual shows that have launched Masterpiece’s ratings in the last few years? Eaton surely doesn’t seem to know.
It’s unforgivable, in my mind, that someone so conscious of a book’s organizational difficulties should not seek out a stronger editorial hand. That’s what editors are for. I do get a sense that Eaton is one of those micromanaging control freaks, which seems from several stories to have contributed to her many other woes. Put simply, the book lacks focus, both in form and content.
Maybe I’m just upset because I picked up this book wanting to read about Downton Abbey and Sherlock––and I don’t particularly care about the hazy technical details of when this or that no-longer-famous actor swapped out introductory comments with this or that slightly-more-famous actor. There’s so much meat to the background of the show that doesn’t get any sort of deliberation at all: Where’s the inquiry into the dubious relationship between art and economy as prompted by Masterpiece’s longstanding funding partner, that monstrous soul-sucking environmental tragedy known as Mobil Oil?! Eaton never once questions it. (Maybe she’s afraid of a legal suit?) The fact that Mobil pulled Masterpiece’s funding when it no longer deemed the program to be lending the company a veneer of credibility says something awesomely interesting about our world. And yet it’s never once engaged.
My general response to this book was one of equal parts boredom and eye-rolling distaste. As a writer myself, I look for a story with rock-solid architecture that holds together under scrutiny. Strike one. As a reader, I look for readability and likable characters. Strike two. And lastly, as a feminist and social justice advocate, I look for a book that engages with the deep questions about why things happen, and how the world we live in comes to exist the way it does. Strike three. If Rebecca Eaton had written this book as a series of blog posts, it would have struck a different chord, and perhaps a more fitting one. As it is, she delivers a book only partially-formed, and moth-eaten along the binding, to a readership that hungers for substance. I can’t help but feel this was an opportunity missed.
[ for more of my reviews, visit Fatal Shore Reviews ]