Lucky Stars
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Jane's 10th novel, Lucky Stars, is a mother-daughter story that's set in Hollywood but should have mothers and daughters everywhere laughing out loud and nodding in recognition.
The heroine, Stacey Reiser, is a struggling actress in L.A. She's pushing thirty-five and still waiting for her Big Break, and she's on the fence about whether she should continue to pursue her dream or give it up and get a real job. Her widowed mother, Helen, who has recently moved to L.A. from Cleveland in order to be closer to her, is one of the great meddlers of all time. She's in Stacey's face about everything - her hair, her clothes, her boyfriends, you name it - and she drives Stacey nuts. All Stacey wants is for her mother to get a life. How could she ever have imagined that the life her mother gets is the life she desperately craves!
Through a quirk of fate (or is it dumb luck?), Helen, a chronic complainer, finds a bone in her can of Fin's Premium Tuna and writes a nasty letter to the tuna fish company. To placate her, the company invites her to their cannery to inspect the premises, and while she's there, giving everybody a tongue lashing, the executives decide she should star in their new TV ad campaign. They love her no-nonsense attitude, her blunt manner, her "realness." No sooner does her first ad run then she becomes a huge celebrity (remember Clara Peller, the "Where's the beef?" lady from the old Wendy's commercials?). Suddenly, she's the actress in the family, not Stacey. What's more, after years of criticizing Stacey's choices in men, now it's Helen who's got a boyfriend - a guy with a very checkered past. The question is: should Stacey meddle in her mother's business, the way her mother has always meddled in hers? The answer's yes, because it just might mean saving Helen's life.
A comic tale that every mother and daughter will relate to, the novel combines elements of romance and suspense for a rousing good read.
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Woman's Own
July 2003
Jane Heller's winning novel is one no grown-up daughter should miss. Cleveland-born Stacey Reiser moved to Hollywood to make it as an actress - and to escape her interfering mother. Then Helen decides to move to Hollywood, where she does a commercial and becomes the toast of the town. How do you deal with a mom who's leading the life you crave?
Boston Globe
May 11, 2003
by Diane White
Jane Heller's funny, fast-moving Lucky Stars may not be the perfect Mother's Day read. Or it may be, depending on your circumstances amd your sense of humor. Narrator Stacey Reiser is a struggling 34-year-old actress in Los Angeles whose loving mother, Helen, is wont to call her multiple times daily to ask why she's not married yet. This is bad enough long-distance, but then her mother decides to move from Cleveland to LA, to an apartment around the corner from her beloved daughter. Helen's discovery of a bone in a can of tuna fish triggers an improbable series of events - this is a farce, after all - that result in mother becoming the star that daughter longs to be. Helen is booked on Leno and Oprah and Regis. Woody Allen wants her for a movie. Celebrities vie to greet her in restaurants. Stacey muses bitterly, "Success in Hollywood was all about being the new face in town (even if the face was sixty-six) and not about having talent."
Lucky Stars is amusing about the mother-daughter relationship as well as the madhouse that is Hollywood.
People Magazine
April 28
by Dan Jewel
Just as 34-year-old actress Stacey Reiser - the heroine of Heller's 10th novel - is on the verge of success, she finds herself starring in a real life comedy of errors. Jack Rawlins, a movie critic with the power to "literally torpedo a budding career," declares her performance in the latest comedy to have "the subtlety of a sledgehammer." Worse, her nagging mother, Helen, joins her in L.A. - and finds a bone in a can of tuna fish. That incident leads, through an unpredictable chain of events, to Helen landing a gig as a pitchwoman for Fin's tuna. Faster than you can say Freaky Friday, Mom is a phenom and her daughter a pesky worrywart....The plot of Lucky Stars is wildly inventive - from that tuna business to Stacey's extravagant attempts to investigate her mother's fishy new boyfriend. Heller's prose is quite funny and always engaging. In the end, Stars shines.
BOTTOM LINE: Lucky charms.
Booklist
4/2003
Kathleen Hughes
Heller writes the kind of uncomplicated and popular novels that make it onto lists like "People's Beach Book of the Week." Here, in the former book publicist's tenth novel, we meet Stacey Reiser, a struggling Hollywood actress. Nearly 35 years old, Stacey is still plugging away waiting for her big break, in the meantime making do with commercials and part-time retail jobs. Her love life is sorely lacking, and on top of all that, her nosey, loud-mouthed, interfering mother, Helen, has just moved to Hollywood to be closer to her. Things only grow worse when Helen finds a bone in a can of tuna and writes a nasty letter to the tuna fish company. The company invites her to their cannery for a visit, and the abrasive and plainspoken Helen is soon offered a starring role in the company's new ad campaign. Meanwhile, Stacey's career continues to tank. What's more, Helen now has a boyfriend, while Stacey continues to have man troubles. This is light reading at its finest.
Publishers Weekly
March 3, 2003
This frolic by Heller (Female Intelligence) may be the spiritual descendant of Freaky Friday, but she delivers her story in fresh language with singular energy. Stacey Reiser comes to Hollywood to become an actress. It also doesn't hurt that L.A. is far both from her native Cleveland and from Helen Reiser, a feisty, 66-year-old know-it-all widow who's marvelous as a walk-on in your life but impossible as a mother. But Helen ups and moves to L.A., too, the better to nag 34-year-old Stacey about her split ends and unmarried state. Through a cascade of events that begins with a bone in a can of tuna and one of Helen's legendary complaint letters to the corporate office, Helen ends up where Stacey always wanted to be: the rich and famous star of a commercial and the darling of the talk-show circuit. She even has a dashing suitor, Victor Chellis, with a fully staffed estate in Beverly Hills. Naturally, Helen's whirlwind ascendancy takes place just as Stacey's career tanks. Reviewing her performance opposite Jim Carrey in "Pet Peeve," almighty movie critic Jack Rawlins tells his TV audience that Stacey has the "subtlety of a sledgehammer." Stacey rapidly becomes the old Helen, nagging Mom about her wardrobe and the dubious Victor. Only Stacey's acting talent and a nail-biting car chase can restore mother and daughter to their proper roles. It's spirited, effortless entertainment with a winning premise and plenty of references to Hollywood stars and the latest TV shows.
Midwest Book Review
April, 2003
She loves her mother but budding actress Stacey Reiser really wishes that she would get a life. Stacy is tired of her mother's frequent phone calls, unsolicited advice and suggestions on how to hold on to a man. Even though there is not a man in her life at present, she is getting roles in movies and televisions shows instead of commercials. When Helen Reiser sells her home in Cleveland and moves close to her daughter in L.A. Stacey goes into shock. Stacey becomes persona non grata in movieland when Jack Rawlins of Good Morning Hollywood trashes her part in a movie. Through a quirky set of circumstances Helen becomes the star in a series of tuna fish commercials, which leads to her to becoming a Hollywood icon. Stacey is happy for her mother even though she has to take a sales job to pay the bills. She becomes very concerned when her mother falls for a man with a shady reputation. Stacey, with the help of Jack (the pair are now an item), try to dig up some evidence against him because her mother won't have her daughter dissing her boyfriend. LUCKY STARS is a first class dramatic comedy starring two strong-willed women who are experiencing role reversal. Readers will find themselves chuckling out loud at some of the conversations these two women exchange. The romance between the actress and the film critic adds another layer of complexity to the plot, as does Stacey's antipathy toward her mother's beau. Jane Heller is a talented writer whose latest work crosses genre lines with this lush witty melodrama.
Romantic Times
April, 2003
Jill M. Smith
Actress Stacey Reiser loves her mother, but can only take her in small doses. For years, widow Helen Reiser has made Stacey's health and happiness her major priorities, thereby driving Stacey nuts. It was bad enough when Stacey lived in Cleveland, but now her busybody Mom packs up and moves west. Stacey knows she is in deep trouble. Stacey has been making slow but steady progress in her acting career. She hopes that her latest role in the new Jim Carrey movie will be her launching pad. It is, but not in the way she'd hoped: The movie tanks and Stacey is savaged by Jack Rawlins, the critic and host of "Good Morning Hollywood." Wouldn't you know that a bizarre twist of fate is about to hand Helen the career Stacey always dreamed about. When Helen confronts Fin's Tuna company about a bone found in a can, the company is so impressed that they hire Helen for a commercial. Suddenly, grouchy, tell-it-like-it-is Helen is the toast of the media world. Everyone, even Oprah, wants to talk with Helen. Now it's Stacey's turn to worry that her mother is getting in over her head. Only in Hollywood! Jane Heller is back and dishing out the humor and irony fast and furiously. While at its heart, Lucky Stars is a mother-daughter story, the tale also brims with romance, intrigue and loads of laughter.
I've always wanted to write a funny book about a mother and daughter, but it wasn't until I read a newspaper article about a novelist whose mother became an even more successful novelist that I got the idea for Lucky Stars. I thought, What would happen if your own mother not only entered your career arena but surpassed you in it? Would you be happy for her? Proud of her? Jealous of her? Probably all three. And then I wondered, To add insult to injury, what if your mother fell in love at the very time in your life when you couldn't even scare up a date? Talk about the competitive juices flowing!
While these ideas were percolating in my head, I moved to Los Angeles and was suddenly surrounded by people in the entertainment business. I thought, Why not set my mother-daughter story in L.A. and make the daughter a struggling actress whose mother becomes the big star?
I researched the book by interviewing several young actresses - women who had come to Tinseltown hoping for their break but had yet to achieve real stardom. They came and sat at my kitchen table and shared their experiences with me. They were generous, they were honest and they were, at times, screamingly funny. Most of all, they're very talented and deserve to "make it."
As for my own mother, she's not the meddlesome type and isn't the model for the character of Helen in the book by any means. Does she tell me to wear a sweater when it's cold, even though I've long passed the age when I didn't know how to dress myself? You bet. Which is why I think Lucky Stars will strike a familiar chord with mothers and daughters everywhere. Mothers are mothers and daughters are daughters, and the relationship can be prickly, but, as the heroine says in the book: "Mothers can be difficult, but they're the ones who love you when nobody else does."
