Strap on your dancing shoes, open up the keyboard, and get ready to put on a production of Hold Me Closer: The Tiny Cooper Story.
Move over Tony Danza, it’s Tiny Cooper’s turn in the spotlight!
Hold Me Closer is the complete package with songs, extended stage directions, and a few, or 17, ex-boyfriends on parade. The moments range from his delivery, to his early days on the baseball team, finding his best friend, and, perhaps most importantly, finding himself.
The ensemble introduces characters both new and old including Lynda the lesbian babysitter, Mom, Dad, The Ghost of Oscar Wilde, and Tiny’s best pal, Phil Wrayson. Tiny Copper sets out to tell his story in the only way he knows how — loudly, filled with swelling crescendos, standing ovations, and huge amount of heart underneath a thick layer of glitter.
‘Hold Me Closer: The Tiny Cooper Story’ review
The first thing you will notice when Hold Me Closer is in your hands, is that it is not your typical novel. The companion novel poses as a script written by a sixteen-year-old high school student with a plethora of musical theater knowledge and tales of ex-lovers that puts Taylor Swift to shame. Tiny Cooper’s huge personality was too big for Will Grayson, Will Grayson, but Hold Me Closer gives just the right amount of room, an entire novel’s worth, for the star to worm his way back into readers’ hearts. The script formatting is not as distracting as it may seem, in fact, does more for the story than a standard novel could. It gives the urgency and showmanship with which Tiny Cooper needed to get his story out into the world.
Hold Me Closer is laden with many, many nods to the legends of The Great White Way. Readers lacking a knowledge of the immense canon of Broadway musical theater, may miss a few jokes here and there. To its credit, the musical-novel strays from specifying the melodies to which the musical numbers are to be sung.
A huge part of the charm of this novel is due to the role the reader is asked to play. Not only are you experiencing the text of this play, but you are asked to envision it as a director/producer/actor. You call the shots (with a helpful dose of advice here and there from the visionary Tiny Cooper). Do the lyrics to “Oh! What a Big Gay Baby!” strike you more like “Prince Ali” in Aladdin than “The Wells Fargo Wagon” from The Music Man? Fantastic! All Tiny Cooper asks is for the pomp and circumstance, regardless of where it comes from.
Where Hold Me Closer truly triumphs is the moments of personal reflection for Tiny Cooper, sprinkled throughout the narrative. Tiny recognizes the traits that others view as shortcomings. Instead of wallowing he digs a bit deeper and throws them back into the world as something fabulous. The deeper moments of the story, especially Tiny coming out to his family, and by extension coming out to himself, do not drag on where other musicals may cause one to nod off or lose focus. They’ll have you jumping out of your seat and demanding more. Before you can wipe your tears from one emotionally touching scene, you are grasping for tissues to dry your eyes from the laughter that follows.
If Smash lived to see a third season, the Marilyn musical would be a distant memory. Hold Me Closer would be the musical that causes Eileen Rand to toss a drink in the face of anyone who tries to challenge the staging of Tiny Cooper’s life story.
We recommend picking up Will Grayson, Will Grayson before diving into Hold Me Closer.
Hold Me Closer: The Tiny Cooper Story by David Levithan is on sale now. You can add it to your Goodreads list, or purchase it from Amazon or IndieBound.