I consider myself an honest person, almost to a fault. So the next morning, I went back to the store to pay for the jar, where I summoned the young associate manning customer service to explain what happened, probably ad nauseam, as his expression turned to bewilderment or stupefaction when I related how it was all a purely innocent mistake that I wanted to rectify. His face went blank when I asked if I could have the senior discount on the price, $3.80, especially since I thought it shouldn’t cost more than 50 cents.

There are enough allusions to the star’s life in this tale for a younger audience to be intrigued.  References to her great affection for “Papa” Hemingway are well founded.  Ava made three films based on his stories: The Killers with Burt Lancaster, The Snows of Kilmanjairo with Gregory Peck, and The Sun Also Rises with Humphrey Bogart, forming a fast friendship with the author.  Mazar’s free-wheeling character defends her “Papa’s” philosophy that “it’s the castration of desire that is indecent.”