An ambitious, acerbic, entertaining take on the film business.
This hard-edged debut looks at the power, savvy, and ugliness that go into making movies.
Nelson, an actor and playwright who has also written, directed, and produced films, deploys an insider’s knowledge of Hollywood in this story of one director being sought for two productions. In 2019, David Levit gets the call to helm the movie Coal, a prestige project, but he’ll have to deal with Jacob Rosenthal, a powerful producer known for his savage tongue and mania for control. He calls to mind the Kevin Spacey character in Swimming With Sharks. The bigger hitch is that Levit is still under contract to a producer named Brad Shlansky on a shoot that closed down for lack of money. Shlansky, a kind of Rosenthal manqué desperate for clout and respect, won’t release Levit to work on Coal. The novel’s fourth major player is Paul Aiello, a brash agent who knew Shlansky in school and now represents him while juggling a sex life increasingly marked by abusive behavior. Nelson delays the inevitable showdown by providing extensive backstories that help populate the 2019 Hollywood sections with strong characters and motives. He also flags the #MeToo movement with Aiello’s extracurriculars and a character closely drawn from Harvey Weinstein while touching on inclusiveness for people of color and women in filmmaking. The book itself is heavily male and White, but Nelson offers a few strong women, including an amusing older lawyer as verbally aggressive as Rosenthal. One of the book’s pleasures are the rants, including one from the Weinstein character that begins in classic style: "Do you have any idea what I can do to you?" Nelson is a solid writer whose dialogue is smart, pacy, and pointed. The roman à clef elements may go well beyond Weinstein—Levit seems to reflect a good bit of Nelson himself—but the novel works without such extras.
An ambitious, acerbic, entertaining take on the film business.Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-951213-65-7
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Unnamed Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
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