Mr Wilder and Me is a novel that takes real people and events and brings them to life with the addition of the authors imagination. Billy Wilder and most of the main characters are real and this is the story of the production of one of his last movies Fedora told through the eyes of Calista Frangopoulou, a young Greek girl he encounters while she is backpacking around America in the 1970's.
Calista is the product of Jonathan Coe's imagination, based on an assistant who worked on Fedora with Wilder.
We are introduced to Calista as she reminisces about events in 2013 when she is 60 and has family issues with her two daughters. Her memories of her life and the people in it help her to come to a decision regarding her family.

This is a beautifully written story that captures the essence of the 70's but also how World War II affected so many people. A great read.

I was given a copy of Mr Wilder and Me by Netgalley and the publishers in return for an unbiased review.

For young Calista a chance meeting during a tour of the US in the 1970s leads to a friendship that changes her life. Calista is invited to dinner by a travelling companion and meets Hollywood legend Billy Wilder. Ignorant at first, she is hired to work on Wilder's comeback film, Fedora, financed by German money. This is difficult for Wilder as it brings back memories of escape from the Nazis and his desperate search for his family. The naive Calista and the world-weary Wilder both reach conclusions about their lives.
I loved this short and sharp novel. The only bits that grated were the modern-day parts which never really evolved but the rest is sublime. A fading Hollywood star director is frustrated by the way cinema has evolved into crowd-pleasing violence, the bit about Sharks In Venice is hilarious. An innocent abroad finally realises her vocation even as her heart is broken. the two bond over brie. Its Coe at his finest, the sly humour, the pathos etc.

Set in the late seventies this novel novel mixes fact and fiction. It
revolves around the production of Billy Wilder’s film Fedora and combines an imaginary central character, Calista, half Greek, half English with the true story of film director Wilder at a time when he is being rebuffed by Hollywood.

Calista, an interpreter meets Wilder by accident and becomes part of the company filming Fedora.
Calista recognises that Wilder is haunted by his past. She travels with him to Munich to film scenes in a movie based on Nazi atrocities. Wilder, an Austrian Jew, who fled Europe before the war, has no idea what happened to his mother.

The novel is about so much: fame, family, nostalgia, the sadness of ageing the way post WW2 film makers regarded film as an escape from reality,
the urge to create and the highs and lows of working in creative professions, how the personal can impact the professional, how status and wealth cannot always protect.

Well researched, a fascinating portrait of the personal and the professional Wilder. Engrossing.

I love Jonathan Coe's books and would read anything he writes. I did enjoy this too - writing-wise certainly, although I did feel it sort of petered out a bit at the end, plot-wise, and that there was no real point to the narrator's family story in the present. Also I wasn't keen on the section written as script, it seemed a bit of an unnecessary pretension. However, I loved how different a book it is, and the fact that so much of it is based on real people and events. Overall I would certainly recommend it.

An absolute delight. A glimpse into the life of one of the most intriguing of Hollywood directors, and his scriptwriter, towards the end of their careers.

Yet again I find myself disappointed with a Jonathan Coe novel. He seems to have lost all the wit and panache and originality of his earlier books to produce a reasonably interesting, reasonably pleasant novel that simply fails to raise more than the occasional smile. In this his latest book he explores his obsession with film director Billy Wilder through the protagonist Calista, now a middle-aged composer living in London, who takes us back to her first chance meeting with Wilder 40 years before. Rather implausibly, after a single meal with the director and his screenwriter, she is hired as an interpreter as she can speak Greek and Wilder is about to set off to Greece to shoot his latest film. Naïve and inexperienced, she innocently observes and comments on the cast and crew and increasingly becomes the confidante of both Wilder and Diamond – again rather implausibly, and this felt more like a device to allow the two men to express their thoughts for the reader. It’s a melancholy, rather wistful novel, not least because Wilder himself has passed his sell-by date and is increasingly being thrust aside by a new generation of directors. The two strands of the novel, Calista in the film world, and Calista in the present navigating life with two grown up daughters sat uncomfortably with me, and felt unnecessary. I was also uncomfortable with the mix of fact and fiction, the mix of real and invented characters – and in particular so much invented dialogue. So for me the book failed on many levels and I remained unengaged throughout – although I did learn a lot about Billy Wilder. Small mercies.

With her twin daughters about to leave the family nest, Calista has to reassess her life. Before focussing on raising the girls, she had a career in the film business as a composer which started by sheer coincidence. She still can well remember the events of 1977 when she met director Billy Wilder in LA and was later invited to work as a translator during his shooting of Fedora on the Greek island of Corfu. The weeks there changed her life forever, not only can she see behind the facade of the glamourous film business, but this is also herself turning from innocent girl to adult woman.

When I first happened to read one of Jonathan Coe’s novels, I was totally flashed by his narration and wondered how this author could have gone unnoticed for such a long time. It is no surprise then that also his latest novel “Mr Wilder and Me” was a thoroughly enjoyable read for me which I relished from the first to the last line.

“This was how Mr Wilder liked to work. He liked a busy, gregarious set with lots of people watching from the sidelines: reporters, photographers, hangers-on, passers-by. It was one of the sources of his energy.“

Even though the story tells Calista’s coming-of-age story, it is much more an homage paid to one of the greatest directors of all times. Calista is a wonderful choice to observe the already elderly film maker, with her fresh and naive eye, she can watch him closely without being distracted by the name he has acquired. She is timid and shy, but also sensitive which allows her to see through his public image and understand why Fedora is especially important to him.

“We had both come to the same realization: the realization that what we had to give, nobody really wanted any more.”

His time is already over, a new generation of directors is about to take over and financing the film has been all but easy, yet, he has one last mission to accomplish which lies much more in his family history than in his artistic creativity. The film has been called old-fashioned and from the distance of four decades, one can surely say that it marks the end of an era.

Apart from the plot, it is first of all the atmosphere which is striking. No matter where and at what time of her life, Calista’s mood and often contradictory thoughts and emotions a strongly present and lead the narration. It is not the big drama or event which mark the action, but rather the slow change within the protagonist and her constant careful reassessment of herself. It is a book to read slowly and to simply enjoy.

What a charming read. I’d enjoyed Middle England by Jonathan Coe before and loved the premise of this book so I was excited to read it. It was such a pleasure to read, charming and fun in parts, with a definite coming of age feeling, though at the same time a meditation on aging and finding yourself at the tail end of a successful career, but now out of fashion and perhaps behind the times. I was particularly moved by the exploration of Billy Wilder’s early life and experience of Nazi Germany. Sweet, glamorous, nostalgic and moving. Thank you to Netgalley and Viking for the ARC.

Mr Wilder and Me by Jonathan Coe is the story of Calista's youth, which she looks back on as a middle aged woman, with 1 daughter leaving the nest, and the other making a big life decision.  Calista is remembering Billy Wilder, a Hollywood director, whom she follows to Germany for the filming of his latest film, as  he is fading out of favour with Hollywood.

This was an enjoyable book, with characters that seemed vivid, interesting and a glimpse at old Hollywood.

This is my first Jonathan Coe book, and I would read more of them!

 Mr Wilder and Me  was published on 5th November 2020, and is available on  Amazon ,  Waterstones  and  Bookshop .

You can follow Jonathan Coe on  Twitter .

I was given this book in return for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to  Penguin Random House .

After a chance meeting with Billy Wilder while backpacking around the US in the 1970s, Calista finds herself on a Greek Island working as a translator on the set of Wilder's latest film. Calista is barely out of her teens, young, naive and slightly without a direction in her life. Through the course of the summer, she watches a Hollywood great who is falling out of favour in the new world of Scorseses and Spielbergs, and learns about the sadness that haunts Wilder.

I love a book about Old Hollywood and I also love novels that fictionalise real people, so even the blurb for this really, really appealed to me. And it didn't disappoint. Mr Wilder and Me is incredibly readable - even if after you finish it you realise Calista herself is not a massively well developed character and exists mostly as a way of getting you into Wilder's world. There is not a lot of drama here - but it doesn't need it. It's an examination of cinema, and fame and what you do and how you cope when people think your glory days are behind you but you don't.

This was a gem of a book for film buffs. An insight into the world of prolific film director Billy Wilder was quite fascinating. It focused on Wilder the man and his declining years when getting funding for films became increasingly difficult. The book starts with us meeting Calister, as a late middle aged empty- nester, with some life parallels to Billy Wilder. Coe uses her to introduce us to Mr Wilder whom she chanced to meet while on her gap year traveling. As she reminisces, we are taken into Mr Wilders world of film and experiences over time with different characters..It was not my favourite Coe book yet i found many gems within it.

Cal is backpacking through America when she is invited to attend a fancy dinner. She ends up meeting Mr Wilder who is a famous film director. She leaves a lasting impression and ends up travelling the world on the set of his new movie 'Fedora'. We follow Cal through the whirlwind experience, highs and lows.

So this was great at getting a sneak peak at the old Hollywood glamour and I loved how fancy everything was. I thought Cal was really sweet and loved the whole small girl in a big town theme.

However, I did find this on the short side so felt it lacked a bit of direction and plot in some places. The part about Billy's was a great addition because it did make me feel more towards his character where I found him quite cold in the first half.

A good little read, perfect for an escape to the past.

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin for providing me with a copy to review.

Brilliant - which is just what I'd expect from Mr Coe. Made me howl with laughter at points - but this was also really thought provoking. The behind the scenes detail feels really accurate and the writing is gorgeous - by which I mean unfussy, compelling and clean. Excellent and I will be recommending thjis like crazy.

Mr Wilder and Me – Jonathan Coe
There is almost too much to appreciate in this wonderful book for me to know where to start. There is Coe as Billy Wilder’s biggest fan, there’s the impact of WW2 on a generation of film makers, the darkness of those for whom Europe was both a lost home and the site of unimaginable horror, and there’s the painfully acute observations of those who feel the best part of their lives may be behind them.
Set in the 1970s, thanks to a chance meeting, a young and innocent Greek woman finds herself launched into a new and glamorous life working for the famous Hollywood director Billy Wilder.

While Calista is thrilled with her new adventure, Wilder himself is living with the realisation that his star may be on the wane and that he has been over taken by young ‘men with beards’, in particular, the likes of Spielberg and his ‘shark movie’. Rebuffed by Hollywood, he has financed his new film with German money.
Many years later, aged 57 Calista is looking back on that magical moment in her life and her discovery of film, music, and love. And just as Wilder felt his moment was over all those years ago, Calista, with one daughter heading to Australia and the other pregnant, feels that her career both as a composer of film music and as a mother is coming to an end.
The novel is a painfully observant coming of age story. It is also a warm and funny portrait of one of cinema's most intriguing figures. Coe, who has cited Wilder as one of his greatest inspirations, turns his gaze on the nature of time and fame, of family and the dangerous lure of nostalgia.
It is a wonderfully moving and clever mix of fact and fiction. The middle section as film script is superb, and I can only hope that someone, somewhere is already considering turning this homage to the golden era of Hollywood into a movie.
At 57 I am exactly the same age as Calista when she reminisces about this magical moment in her twenties which remains a golden time for her. I can appreciate how those days in our twenties so full of possibilities can remain imprinted in our memories with such precision you can almost taste them. Coe captures all this perfectly, whilst showing us that while life may change, there are often new possibilities waiting for us to grab hold of them.
Read this book slowly, it deserves to be savoured and appreciated in the same way as a wonderful slice of Brie de Meux, even if it makes you late for your next appointment.

Bliss. A favourite director. A 'behind the scenes' of Hollywood. Somebody's perfect!

A woman's family drama bookends her past, as we dive into Hollywood history and Calista's accidental but fortuitous meeting with Billy Wilder in the 1970s. With real historical facts about his films, his aphorisms and his director's world, Calista is our eyes on a Hollywood and film-making period fading, even at that time.

Ohh, it was just wonderful. Maybe you have to be a fan already to appreciate this. I've seen at least a dozen of Billy Wilder's films (though sadly NOT the one this book revolves around), and just fell into the world Calista also finds herself, by a mere twist of fate, caught in.

A Greek early-20-something, the young woman is touring the US, travelling with a new acquaintance whose father insists she meet an old business associate of his for dinner. Cue a 'meet cute' straight out of 40s black-and-white romances, when Calista happens to take the interest of this business associate, one Billy Wilder.

This is just the start of their affiliation, as she finds herself offered work on a film set and privy to the renowned director's thoughts. We watch stars flit across the page, the makings-of secrets tumble out. Even his own history related to a star-struck (but misinformed) fan.

And this was where it all took off for me - scenes of Billy's life, within the book, played out as a script. Genius. A fictitious young woman, almost a McGuffin to let us into his world, though Calista does have her own plot to resolve back in her present.

The war in Europe chapters, and Billy's work afterwards, this was something I did find interesting, I didn't know his involvement in Germany after the war. Or about the films he made. Something to look into, for me.

Billy's witty sayings and stories, all are quoted and collected together at the end, sources named, as they are (some recognisably and famously) said by the great man. And I could almost hear Walter Matthau voicing some of them! Just how I picture the voice and tone.

There was much amusement coming from Calista's attempts to school herself in film lore (via the Halliwell I myself read and memorised!) really hit home for me. Watching fans fawn in front of Wilder but bringing up favourites he made decades ago, seeing the director scoff at Jaws and such 'young men with beards' new classics, it was bittersweet and almost sad. Those are my favourites of his, and watching him see cinema change and seeing his own star fall... well, while new things come along, the true greats will never be forgotten or put aside. They are always appreciated.

Just loved it, I'm such a fanatic anyway but Wilder has made so many of my favourites. Loved the insights into his world but also the insight of how he might have affected someone like Calista. Her own story was very much pigeonholed and knit together rapidly (though effectively enough) at the close, but this was not why I and many other like me will pick this title up.

Fans of Billy... read on, read on my friends. Bask and then go get your DVDs out and remember what film-making was like.

Highly, highly recommended for anyone who sees the title and knows who this is about. You'll not be disappointed. Love this author, and love his passion (and detailed research done) for the subject.

With thanks to Netgalley for providing an advance reading copy.

This was an okay read for me, I didn't dislike it however, I didn't love it either. It was easy to read and follow.

3.0 out of 5 stars

I laughed out loud a couple of times

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 November 2020

Back in the late summer of 1995, to celebrate getting my first job, I bought "What a Carve Up!", and was absolutely bowled over by it. This sent me in hot pursuit of Coe's three earlier novels, no easy task to track down in those pre-Amazon days, but they were reissued on the back of the success of WaCU! and I was able to obtain his first novel "The Accidental Woman" (as well as the other two). "Mr Wilder and Me" reminded me a lot of TAW in that both have a female protagonist, are quite short - MW&M is really barely more than a novella - and feel as though there are stripped down versions of much longer novels. Interestingly, on his website, Coe talks of his very long unpublished early manuscripts, but implies that TAW isn't actually a redaction of one of those works. It is perhaps noteworthy that there were originally supposed to several more novels in the "Rotters' Club"/"The Closed Circle" sequence and Benjamin's Booker Prize longlisted novel in "Middle England" is, indeed, exactly an extract from a vastly larger project. So it might well be that the idea of condensed novels or novels that read like condensed novels is something of interest to Coe (note that B.S. Johnson's novels are mostly very short), although the evidence suggests that MW&M itself was a work completed over a few months at a writers' retreat and then under lockdown.

But my point is that this doesn't really feel like a fully realised novel. At the beginning it seems to be about the domestic (1) and professional travails of late middle-aged composer of film music, but the work quickly turns into an exploration of the life and work of Billy Wilder, who the narrator meets in California (2) as a teenager and then is invited to work as a translator and then sort of secretary/production assistant on Wilder's (real life) film "Fedora". Wilder wasn't someone I knew anything about (I have only seen a couple of his films if that). It's clear from the book that he was an interesting and, if Coe's/the narrator's account is to be trusted (Coe lists his sources at the end), a pretty sympathetic character.So it made me want to watch some Wilder films and obviously if you are interested in Wilder then this is a book for you. For the rest of us, I laughed out loud a couple of times, which I suppose is a compliment if you have written a purportedly comic novel. After reading, MW&M, I read "Middle England", which is a more substantial novel and one I did prefer, although as Coe admits in a recent "Guardian" interview, his career has been defined by one book he write over a quarter of a century ago and having now read nine of Coe's thirteen novels, I can confirm that he has never come close to matching the brilliance of his masterpiece WaCU! I do have "Expo 58" and "Number 11" on my Fire and I do look forward to reading them in 2021. (Coe's biography of B.S. Johnson is very good indeed. I discovered Johnson years before I discovered WaCU!, so the fact that Coe was also such a fan is something that I felt created a mystic bond between us - I even went to a showing of B.S. Johnson films at a cinema in Soho that Coe introduced some time probably in the early 2000s - but sadly nothing he has produced has come close to those two books. Perhaps a touch more of the Johnson next time might help.) .

(1) has the protagonist's daughter gone to Boston or Sydney for her (gap?) year? Perhaps both, of course. I don't get the impression that the ambiguity is supposed to be important. Coe is not Christopher Priest.

(2) The narrator meets Wilder because when on a roadtrip to the US she hooks up with another girl whose father was an acquaintance of Wilder's. The girl has been invited to dinner by Wilder in Hollywood and takes her narrator along for support. The friend disappears from the dinner to hook up with a boyfriend leaving the protagonist alone with Wilder, his co-writer and their wives. I bring this up because the girl is called Gill and comes from Birmingham and gets married to the boyfriend, Steve. I kept expecting her to turn later in the novel, but she didn't, so I don't know what her significance is supposed to be. But the fact that comes from Birmingham suggests to me that she is somehow connected to Coe's grand me(g|t)novel. Does anyone know if a Gill and/or a Steve crops up elsewhere in Coe's oeuvre, probably TRC or TCC?

Many thanks to NetGalley for providing an electronic ARC.

Jonathan Coe presents a very timely reminder of the importance of film making; as witness, as a mirror of society and as welcome distraction and entertainment. Our narrator Calista acts as a Greek interpreter during filming of Billy Wilder’s film ‘Fedora’ having met him earlier when travelling in the USA, a role which proves to be pivotal in her life. The novel is structured around three meals that prove to be significant in Calista’s relationship with Billy, and also explores the significance of chance connections. I enjoyed being introduced to the career and filmography of Billy Wilder, and also learning more of the process of film making. One of the significant meals is presented as a screenplay which I found effective in casting the writer/director as star of his own story.

This was exactly the book I needed on a day like today, when it feels like the world is on fire a bit. This is pure, blissful escapism in a book.

In all honesty, I had not heard of Billy Wilder before reading this, but I’m so glad that Coe brought him back to life with this beautiful story. I love novels with biographical elements sprinkled in like this, as it adds a certain old age glamour to the story - there are plenty of famous names thrown in this story including a young Al Pacino always on the hunt for a great hamburger...

Calista is a wonderful narrator as someone who now finds herself in the same position that Wilder was in when she met him - ageing and with her best work behind her. Whilst this is mostly an uplifting story, there is also a melancholy feeling around the subject of growing old and no longer being in demand as a new generation comes in with their “fresh take”.

One of the common threads in all of my favourite books is a feeling of wisdom being imparted to the reader, and I certainly felt that way whilst reading this - there’s a moment in the book where Wilder is talking about the new generation of directors and producers and how you haven’t made a serious picture unless the audience leaves feeling depressed and miserable now, and how true is that? We’re never satisfied without some kind of violence, misery or death these days and this book is the perfect antidote to that - this is a glorious reminder of how pleasurable it can be to read something for the sheer joy of it.

This is beautifully written and I loved the change in structure at one point where the story read like a film script - very clever and engaging!

Whilst this story isn’t all plain sailing (there is quite a big focus on the Holocaust and loss during the book), I mostly found this a tonic - to escape to the glamour of 1970s Greece, Paris and Munich was exactly what I needed, and I can’t recommend this enough. And that cover is just bliss to look at in itself!

*3.25*

"Mr Wilder and Me" is the story of Calista, a Greek girl who had the privilege of getting to know and working with the very famous director Billy Wilder and the screenwriter I. A. L. Diamond, and also how this experience will change her life and her view of the world.

The novel is set both in the present, while Calista recalls her times with these two very famous characters, and the past. It's in 1977 when the girl has the chance to work in the director as a Greek translator, and from that moment on her life will change for good.

I'm always very drawn to novels that talk about the lives of famous people, but with a fictionalized bit. I'm also really glad to had the chance to get to know more about Billy Wilder's figure since I knew next to nothing about him, and now I want to watch his movies immediately, especially Fedora, the one this book focuses on.

I also really loved to see Calista becoming her own person and following her dreams, even if at the beginning of the book she didn't even know what they were exactly.
I strongly believe that living alongside people who work with art is a magnificent experience, and I can see why our protagonist got a lot from it.

This book didn't really blow me away as I expeceted, as it was more a character study in my opinion, but it's only my fault, because I had other expectations. The book in itself is really good and the writing style is really captivating.

I would recommend it if you, like me, like stories about famous people, Hollywood, and what it means to create art.