ROYALTIES

Reviewed by Steven H Silver

Andy Marx's Royalties is heavily based on the lives of his grandfathers, Gus Kahn and Groucho Marx, although the characters based on the two men, Ben Cohen and Alex Getz, are heavily fictionalized in the novel. Good friends in real life, the fictional Cohen and Getz find themselves in a decades long love triangle with Eve Solomon, who arrived in New York from England when she was eighteen with the goal of becoming a concert pianist.

Solomon's dreams are sidelined by her uncle, who puts her to work in the factory where he is a foreman. An encounter with Leo Dreyfus, a music publisher she had met on the ocean voyage to the U.S., convinces her that if she can't study music, should could still work in the industry and she leaves New York for Chicago, where she gets a job with Dreyfus's publishing company and demonstrates her ability for selling the music he publishes. She meets Alex Getz when she is sent to Milwaukee to convince him to sing some of the company's songs. By that time, she has also met a meat packer named Ben Cohen, who wants to write music, thus setting up the triangle which will dominate Marx's novel.

Professionally, Solomon sees potential in Cohen, although she thinks his songs need help and she reworks them, eventually getting Getz to perform one. The song becomes a hit for Getz, launching Solomon on a solo career as a publisher and Cohen as a songwriter. Solomon and Getz have a strong attraction between them while Cohen aches for Solomon, who sees him as no more than a friend. Her timing with Getz, who is constantly traveling the Vaudeville circuit, is less than optimal and eventually Solomon begins to consider the possibility of accepting Cohen's proposals.

Although Eve and Alex are the protagonists, Eve's story takes pride of place since she is the link between Ben and Alex. Although the men are described as good friends and work together professionally throughout the years the novel takes place, it is rare for Marx to show the men interacting without Eve's presence or influence. Over the years of their relationships, nearly everything Solomon touches professionally turns to gold and she winds up having a major role in the establishment of ASCAP and the March of Dimes. Cohen eventually becomes a successful composer, often mentioned in the same breath as Berlin and Gershwin. Getz achieves success on stage and in movies, but his personal life is less successful.

Although Cohen and Getz are based on Kahn and Marx, they are not those individuals and their lives take different turns, even if they follow the broad outlines of Marx and Kahn's life. The reader needs to remember that just because Marx depicts Getz as a miserable and lonely man, doesn't mean that Groucho was the same way, even when their situations seem to mirror each other. Even where the situations most closely mirror the reality, there are changes. Groucho's experience with Erin Fleming in the 1970s plays our quite differently, and more melodramatically, in Getz's experience with Marcie Cooper in Royalties, and also serves as a reminder to not draw conclusions about Kahn or Marx based on Cohen and Getz.

If the novel has a weak point, it is Solomon's infatuation with Getz. Her character is so level headed, competent, and even ruthless in so many areas, but she carries a schoolgirl crush on Getz over the course of several decades. Marx doesn't give any indication what she sees in him throughout that time. His behavior toward her, despite claiming to love her, is often despicable, but Solomon overlooks it for no discernable reasons. This could have been avoided if Marx had included a few scenes in which Getz allowed his guard down to show Solomon a character that he didn't allow anyone else to see, but without that, Solomon's love for Getz never really makes sense.

Overall, however, despite the length, Royalties is a quick read, offering stories about Vaudeville and Hollywood through their golden ages, which Marx has taken from his grandfathers and tweaked to fit his narrative. Having Cohen, Solomon, and Getz interact with historical figures, from Frank Sinatra to Mae West to Ed Sullivan, given the novel a fuller feel as the characters build their own lives and careers, leaning on each other and trying to help each other. Even when their relationships don't fully make sense, they are still supportive and leave the reader with a positive feeling.

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