BASED ON THE MOVIE

Debut novel rife with arrogant directors, pompous directors of photography, pretentious assistant directors, puffed-up producers…and one victimized dolly grip.

Like almost everyone on the set of Aquarena Springs, narrator Bobby Conlon wants desperately to direct. All he sees about him are the unfit, the unqualified and the incompetent—especially the series of laughably bumbling directors who act like prima donnas to cover their ineptitude. Conlon’s personal life is also in disarray. His wife, film producer Natalie Miguel, has recently begun an affair with Harvard-educated Elias Simm, a director manqué who finally gets his chance, with risible and ultimately disastrous results. The dynamic of the soundstage changes when lead actor Ryan Donahue’s previous film opens to boffo business at the box office. Donahue is now a hot property who can call the shots—literally. Meanwhile, Conlon tries to remain faithful to his wife, at least until his divorce comes through. But his fidelity is tested by Carni, a producer “who had broken into the business working for independent filmmaker John Sayles and whose cult-like devotion to him approached the perverse.” Himself a former dolly grip, Taylor pokes fun at the various types who inhabit this collective cinematic zoo. “Q: How can you tell when a producer’s lying to you? A: His lips are moving.” The novel moves predictably through this not-terribly-adaptive subculture of the film-obsessed, while Conlon tries to overcome his addiction to “Zanax, Vicodin Anexsia, Lorcet, and every other Vicoprofen I could get a doctor to write me a prescription for.”

The stakes are low here, and the hero’s obsessions eventually become tiresome.