"by George" is simply excellent. It works on such a simple, refreshingly straightforward level, and yet - and I won't go into any of the plot here since other reviews have covered it - given Stace's handling of the theme (ventriloquism, finding ones own voice, etc), almost every scene becomes as deep and complicated as the reader wants it to be, layered with extra meaning: some become unbearably poignant, others take on a rather sinister aspect. I only realised towards the end that there aren't in fact three narrators, as it seems, but two - and this works perfectly too. The whole book has a beautiful, subtle mechanism.
Apart from this, the story works most satisfactorily and the characters are richly described. I've never read another book quite like it and I suspect I'm not alone. It's quite a feat to pull this kind of thing off, particularly without making it all seems show-offy, but Stace makes it seem so easy. Highly recommended.

This is a family history told by two Georges - one a ventriloquist's dummy named George and the other by a boy (who grows into a teen) named George after the dummy.

The family is in entertainment, starting with the matriarchical great grandmother, Echo, down through her son, his wife, grandaughter and then the now-living George. The wooden George belonged to the son who died in WWII, entertaining the troops with his ventriloquism until his death. He narrates part of the story. As strange as this seems, it is fitting and does not go over the top (he even makes a snide reference to the dummy in Goldman's book of the '70's which is very funny).

The story line follows the family, including George-the-living, through its history. Every generation has its conflicts, ghosts and skeletons in the closet. Therefore there is some tension from the outset. However, the tension builds and builds as the family's revelations come to light. Everyone older than George, including George the dummy, has secrets they reveal. The final secrets are brought out of the closet by the living George.

This is a terrific story following several generations in the entertainment business in England; starting in vaudeville, going through entertaining troops in WWII and all the way into television. The telling is sprinkled with humor. There is something reminiscent of "Water for Elephants" in that it is most of all a very good story in interesting settings. The revelations in every generation are startling, yet believable. The characters, including the supporting cast, are all interesting and have depth. The writing is very good as well. Highly recommended for a very good and entertaining family saga.

Loosly based on author Wesley Stace's grandfather, this novel is a meticuously researched and vibrant account of the immensely popular art of ventriliquism and the accompanying variety acts that proliferated throughout Britain during the 20th century. Alternating between the early 1930's and the mid 1970's, with much of the action taking place through World War 11, By George is a coming-of-age-story, an irreverent memoir, and also a witty melodrama drama where family secrets are buried for years under the weight of so much anguish and pain.

The novel centers on George Fisher, son to the glamorous Frankie Fisher who has made a lucrative career out of English Pantomime and who later became known as a popular television personality. George is also grandson to the secretive Joe "Death Wish" Fisher, who once fashioned a ventriloquist act and ended up entertaining the troops throughout the Middle East during the War, even as he faced the derision of his diva-like mother Echo "Evie" Endor, who was royalty in a bygone era of music hall and variety entertainment and one the last great stalwarts of the British stage, and who also wowed audiences with her show which included "boy" Narcissus.

But there's also another George that's a part of this story, that of Joe's trusted friend and confidante, the dummy Gorgeous Garrulous George, who partially narrates this tale, and who was made by the great Joseph Romando and then given to Joe from Echo as a present on his twenty-first birthday. Like many divas that have made their living on the stage in the pre-war years, Echo Endor brims with her own agenda as she plots to think how she can build her son's career and help him through the early heartbreak as he pays his dues.

Swept away by her own ego, and perhaps also inflated opinion of her self (after all, she is a "ventriloquiste" of old-time variety), Echo hopes to pass on the benefit of her years of experience, even if she's determined to hide many of the real secrets of her success from him. Joe wants to develop an act centered around "polyphony," the art of making voices appear from nowhere, Echo, however, automatically shoots him down, telling him it's a nice idea, but that he'll never find a producer or an audience.

Determined not to have her life's work belittled by an amateur, even if he is her son, Joe becomes a part of the show called the Fol-de-Rols where this clash between mother and son ends up becoming a battle of wills and popularity. Suddenly it's George against Narcissus and Joe against Echo as Echo pretends to offer Joe one hand while all the while pushing him down with the other.

Meanwhile, in 1973 the poor eleven-year-old George is resentfully sent away to the Upside School for Boys. Echo is now in her early nineties and she still retains a fierce control of the household even though she can no longer leave her bed. Cast aside by the too busy Frankie who is constantly working, George is unable to live with his officious grandmother Queenie, or of course, his great-grandmother, and is consequently thrust into a new world of school with its unimagined customs and codes.

So begins the solitary life of this reclusive and lonely boy, forced to sleep in a dormitory that feels like a hospital ward, "on rough sheets in a dark, thin dungeon of whining bedsprings, grumbling matresses and the foreign creeks, coughs and groans." There is no room for pleasure and even reading is discouraged, but when Evie gifts him an ornately designed Victorian book called The Lfe and Adventures of Valentine Fox the Ventriloqiest, about a boy, a ventriloquest, who can throw his voice and make fun of people by pretending to be another voice, George sets his heart on cultivating his own weired gift and avenging all those wrongs and injustices that have roused his indignation.

Gravitating between the lives of George and Joe, the author makes his pages come alive

Almost all of this clever story is a delight to read (except when Stace transforms the sensitive, observant George (the boy) into a too-savvy-by-half 17-year-old ... hence, the four stars vs. five).

Reading by George was like eating candy. In the very best of ways. The pace is fast, the characters are real, the writing is both dickensian and contemporary. It's about vaudeville, a topic that didn't interest me but that Stace developed so well, I found myself looking forward to each foray into his fictional vaudevillian world. One thing by George did was to make me want to race back and re-read Stace's debut novel, Misfortune. Both books have a redeeming warmth and a sophistication that's remarkable in contemporary fiction. Check them out. They're both really good. Stace is really good.