Me Cheeta (40 page)

“Mr. Lever puts on a dazzling performance, using his wild conceit to give us an incisive, hilarious study of Hollywood folkways. His Cheeta is a cigarette-smoking, booze-guzzling, name-dropping, washed-up actor who preens over his modest accomplishments, dreams of being awarded an honorary Oscar, and swears like one of the sailors on the ship that brought him from Africa with a load of exotic animals in 1933. In other words, except for the Africa bit, the famous chimp is just the sort of garrulous, thoroughly entertaining character you might hope to find in a Hollywood retirement home…. Worth the price of admission alone: the recurring theme of Cheeta’s animus toward Charlie Chaplin…. They are finally reunited not long before Weissmuller’s death in 1984, the wheelchair-bound former King of the Jungle and the elderly chimp who had been his most faithful friend. The scene is a marvel: completely idiotic and wholly, throat-catchingly convincing. A million celebrities typing on a million keyboards would be hard-pressed to top
Me Cheeta.”

— Wall Street Journal

“A lyrical and profane memoir-cum-love-story. The book is hilarious, catty, melancholy, and, occasionally, deep.”

—Washington Post

“As a premise,
Me Cheeta
is glorious. What wouldn’t be entertaining about the memoir of a chimpanzee, ghostwritten by James Lever, who witnessed Hollywood’s golden age and is more than willing to spill? Cheeta is one articulate primate, and he’s not afraid to dish.”

—
Denver Post

“Cheeta has typed a rude, hilarious, and infectious memoir of Hollywood’s golden age…. The Hollywood spoofing is certainly entertaining, but
Me Cheeta
evolves into something grander: a broad, cutting satire on the differences between man and beast. Cheeta expresses gratitude to mankind for our longstanding operation to rescue animals from the dangers of their native habitats. He sees global warming as a brilliant plan to protect baby seals from malevolent polar bears. By the time Cheeta delivers his fantasy Oscar acceptance speech, we recognize more than a vestigial trace of Jonathan Swift in this chimp’s tale.”

—Chicago Sun-Times

“Amazing fact number one about Cheeta, the chimpanzee who was in all those old Johnny Weissmuller
Tarzan
movies: He’s seventy-six and still alive, the oldest chimpanzee ever. Amazing fact number two about Cheeta: He’s written a book,
Me Cheeta: My Life in Hollywood.
And it’s pretty good, considering it was written by a monkey who has been eligible for AARP membership since the first Reagan Administration.”

—
Florida Times-Union

“Why is everyone not raving about
Me Cheeta?
It really is one of the smartest comic novels of recent years.”

—Peter Bradshaw,
Guardian

“The charismatic chimp rises above his own inner demons and self-destructive impulses to provide fresh insights as he vividly recreates his Hollywood past. Cheeta’s narrative is actually the classic immigrant autobiography, albeit one enlivened by incredible high jinks, poignant moments, tales of scandalous hedonism, and stormy relationships. I certainly hope there’s a biopic in the works.”

—Publishers Weekly

“The ultimate tell-all LA memoir…. Celebrity memoirists should read this and weep.”

—
Independent
Best 20 Books of the Year

“Cheeta’s reminiscences of old Hollywood have a fun, sardonic side, and he dishes the dirt on everyone.”

—
Library Journal

“I challenge anyone to find a more salacious, foul-mouthed, and entertaining memoir.”

—Richard Grant,
Telegraph Magazine

“It is honestly hard to know where to start…. A hilarious book, packed with well-aimed Swiftian turds…. It will subtly change forever the way we think not only about Hollywood (and actors’ memoirs) but also about our own very species.”

—Lynne Truss,
Sunday Times

“Me Cheeta
may well be the finest Hollywood memoir ever written…. As a raconteur of the excesses of Hollywood, Cheeta is right up there with the likes of David Niven. Like all the best comedy, it is never far from poetry.”

—Craig Brown,
Mail on Sunday

“The bitchiest, most scurrilous chronicle of the Dream Factory since Kenneth Anger brought out
Hollywood Babylon.
Laugh-out-loud hilarious … and also a moving tribute to the man who will forever be associated with the role of Tarzan. Cheeta’s last encounter with Weissmuller is so sad I burst into tears.”

—Anne Bilson,
Sunday Telegraph

“The most rollicking showbiz memoir since David Niven’s
Bring on the Empty Horses…. Me Cheeta
is a satirical masterpiece.”

—Roger Lewis,
Daily Telegraph

“The literary equivalent of Cheeta’s own ‘triple-back-flip-hand-clap-double-lip-flip-and-grin’… all of this delivered in glorious, inventive prose. Whoever you are, I salute you”

—Stuart Kelly,
Scotland on Sunday

“It’s a funny year in which the most successful show business autobiography, the funniest, cleverest, and most insightful, the one that says the most about the art of memoir-writing and the human condition, is the one that was written by a chimp.”

—Katy Guest,
Independent
, best Christmas books

“Easily my favorite book of the year…. Funny, scandalous, and moving.”

—Kathryn Hughes,
Mail on Sunday

“It’s the book everyone’s talking about, a book that makes you guffaw out loud…. We get a tender love story, a spot of monkey lore, and, just to cap things off, a constant riff on the pluses and minuses of being forced to leave one’s ‘natural habitat.’ Blow me, even the index is a delight.”

—Charlotte O’Sullivan,
Evening Standard

“This, unquestionably, is the gold glinting in the cloacal slurry. Any celebs hoping to crack next year’s Christmas market should take note: look upon the work of the guy with the hairy ears and the saggy scarlet bottom, and despair.”

—
The Independent on Sunday

“Me Cheeta:
undoubtedly the year’s best not-a-memoir-at-all. It’s hard to conceive of anyone who’d like a biography for Christmas who wouldn’t like a copy of this truly horribly funny book.”

—Tim Martin,
Daily Telegraph