You need a lot of skill to write a book. You need to come up with a good idea, plan it out and use your command of language to make that story come alive. When everything comes together, the end result can really change the way you look at things. Jack Newcastle’s “The Fine Art of Mixing Girls” does not fall into that category.

I picked this book up at the library a while back. I liked the cover and the the jacket copy moderately amused me. But I should have realized that the smug author pick and the way it described the author in the third person as if he were almost a character in the book (he is not, but probably wishes he were).

Newcastle does seem to have a knack for capturing the language of the 1950s if we simply use old movies and “Mad Men” as a guide. Whatever skill he has in this area, however, was beaten down by his need to let us know how well he knew the language of the 1950s.

He wraps that forced issue around a paper-thin story. Gossip and society reporter Roosevelt Lane tries to date two women, one of whom gets him in trouble on the job because of her political leanings. That’s it. That’s the story. One of the girls he covets is out of the country filming a movie so it really doesn’t get as crazy as it could and Newcastle seems to think that making things crazy is something frivolous that a man who wants to live in 1953 would never do.

That’s the problem. Newcastle didn’t write a book for the reader. He wrote a book for himself. This was an exercise in indulging his interests. Luckily for me, it’s not a horrible book so I didn’t fling it against the wall in frustration or give up halfway through. I don’t recommend it, but I’m not actively campaigning against it. That’s the way a 1953 gentleman would act … I think.