THE HOLLYWOOD FIX

Kirshenbaum’s novel tells a tale of a Hollywood fixer who faces a problem that he may be unable to solve.

In the Golden Age of Hollywood, stars are not born but made. Studio fixers wipe away past blemishes and the spotty public records of rising stars. Readers follow one such figure, Bartie Maddox, as he reminisces on what he sees as the biggest “fix” of his career: securing studio star and heartthrob Duke Drake the 1955 Academy Award for Best Actor while keeping his sexual orientation hidden from the public. The book then jumps back in time to the Great Depression, following the trajectories of several non-famous people, including Drake, an American heiress, an “Atomic Blonde,” and a Viennese baroness fleeing a Europe on the brink of war. Bartie molds each one into a movie star while working for SGM Studio, run by the ruthless and powerful Solomon Myers. As Bartie’s colleagues are fired or blacklisted, his power at SGM increases; meanwhile, the studio’s actors play roles offscreen and on as he rewrites their lives to avoid possible scandal. Eventually, though, Bartie confronts the reality that life, unlike a movie, can’t be fixed in post-production when SGM’s biggest star murders his own friend. Over the course of this novel, Kirshenbaum effectively uses multiple third-person perspectives, which allows for more dynamic characterization of each major player than a single voice would allow. In particular, the interweaving stories of heiress Grace Greystone and Baroness Irene Von Mendelssohn develop into a solid narrative that addresses themes of strength, resistance, and rebirth. Their soulful stories provide a rich underpinning to the novel’s portrayal of a Los Angeles that runs as wild as Babylon.

An entertainingly nuanced story of old Hollywood that shows that some stars shine brighter than others.