Hollywood : A Novel of America in the 1920's (Narratives of Empire #5) - American Chronicle Series

Gore Vidal

Mass Market Paperback / Ballantine Books

1991

419 páginas

13h 58m

ISBN-10: 0345370139

"Wicked and provocative...Gore Vidal's purview of Hollywood in one of its golden ages is fascinating." ----Tom Tryon / Chicago Tribune. (...) In his brilliant and dazzling new novel, Gore Vidal sweeps us into one of the most fascinating periods of American political and social change. The time is 1917. In Washington, President Wilson is about to lead the United States into the Great War of 1914. In California, a new industry is born that will transform America: moving pictures. Here is history as only Gore Vidal can re-create it: brimming with intrigue and scandal, peopled by the greats of the silver screen and American politics, from Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks to Franklin D. Roosevelt and the author's own grandfather, the blind Senator Gore. With Hollywood, Vidal once again proves himself a superb storyteller and a perceptive chronicler of human nature's endless deceptions.

"Gore Vidal succeeds in making his history alive and plausible." --The New York Times.
"Gore Vidal's originality derives from his as- surance that he can create and command the American history of his novels, as much as he can their imaginary components. No other American writer I know of has Vidal's sense of national proprietorship. He summons the entire American scene into his confident voice. Vidal's presump- tions work marvelously well for his intentions." --Richard Poirier, The New York Review of Books.

"Hollywood' marks the 5th episode in Gore Vidal's "Narratives of Empire," his celebrated series of six historical novels that form his extended biography of the USA. It's 1917. President Woodrow Wilson is about to lead the country into the Great War in Europe. In California, a new industry is born that will irreversibly transform America. Caroline Sanford, the alluring heroine of Empire, discovers the power of moving pictures to manipulate reality as she vaults to screen stardom under the name of Emma Traxler. Just as Caroline must balance her two lives -- West Coast movie star & East Coast newspaper publisher & senator's mistress -- so too must America balance its two power centers: Hollywood & Washington. Here's history as only Gore Vidal can recreate it: brimming with intrigue & scandal, peopled by the greats of the silver screen & American politics.