Novels of Hollywood’s Golden Age: What to Read While Waiting for “West of Sunset”

Stewart O'Nan has a new book out, as many of you are well aware. West of Sunset is a novel of the last three years of F. Scott Fitzgerald's life, lived in Hollywood. His years of literary genius are behind him, his wife is in an insane asylum, and he's broke. Still, like most of O'Nan's characters, he shoulders his cross and continues in hope. The reader gets to meet many other famous people that Fitzgerald parties with, including Dorothy Parker and that other heroic drinker, Earnest Hemingway. While Fitzgerald dies of a heart attack, no great screenplay to his name and his last novel unfinished, one is grateful for the romantic, elegiac journey.

For another, sunnier look at writing in golden-age Hollywood, there's A Touch of Stardust by Kate Alcott. This is also a recent release so get it now. Julie Crawford of Fort Wayne, Indiana has defied convention and come to Hollywood to be a screenwriter like her idol, Frances Marion. She quickly becomes the assistant and confidant to Carole Lombard, queen of the screwball comedy, lover of Clark Gable, and fellow Hoosier refugee. Julie has her own romance with Andy, an assistant to producer David Selznick who is trying against all odds to make Gone With the Wind. Will love survive? Will Julie make it as a screenwriter? Will Gone With The Wind make it to release without blowing up in everyone's faces? This is a meticulously researched and keenly observed piece of historical fiction that you will just have to read to find out.

Falling From Horses by Molly Gloss is also meticulously researched and keenly observed, but brutally does away with any glamor that might be had in the movies of the time. Nineteen-year-old cowboy Bud befriends aspiring screenwriter Lily on the bus to Hollywood. He gets a job stunt riding for low-budget westerns, which is grueling and often cruel for both man and beast. Gloss fills the book with descriptions of the tricks used to achieve the effects in old westerns, and it is not comforting reading. Despite the demands of their jobs, Bud and Lily maintain their friendship and see a movie together once a week. While both eventually leave Tinseltown for bigger and better things, the characters' time there leaves an indelible mark.