THIS TIME, THIS PLACE: MY LIFE IN WAR, THE WHITE HOUSE, AND HOLLYWOOD hits the shelves barely a month after the death of its author, JACK VALENTI, at the age of 85. Valenti professed to have written this memoir so that his grandchildren might understand his journey from mean circumstances on Houston’s Alamo Street to influential positions as special assistant to President Lyndon Johnson and majordomo of the Motion Picture Association of America. True to his word, this is an amiably self-effacing affair that finds the author pulling himself up by his war-weary bootstraps (he was a bomber pilot in World War II) to find his place in the big world. To his credit, Valenti accepts that his power derived from his proximity to the powerful (mentor LBJ and cabinet) and his fame from the truly famous (every movie-biz A-lister of the twentieth century). Steeped in old-school graciousness, it is a journal of which Valenti’s progeny will surely approve.
