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FORBIDDEN HOLLYWOOD
by William Prendergast
Cole Dixon Publishing, August 2002
354 pages
$13.95
ISBN: 0971473927


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

William Prendergast's Forbidden Hollywood as cocktail. Call it a California cheapo nostalgia martini: Nathanael West's Day of the Locust shaken in a Chandler shaker but poured into a tawdry Harold Robbins / Jacqueline Susan glass. Or something like that.

I read it. I read it fast. Real fast.

This book centers on a beautiful screen goddess with a secret and the tough guy criminal narrator out to make the big score and then get outta his line of work. The largely nameless narrator's source of income is blackmail which usually leads to him having to get a little rough now and then. We know our narrator through most of the book as Bill Hart. Mr. Hart is on his way out West after an East cost shakedown has gone wrong. He is out to catch up and partner with his old chum from, you guessed it, the county jail. Old pal Sam is an alcoholic ex movie cowboy now selling tour maps to the homes of the stars. Even old Sam isn't too sure of our narrator's real name (fans of the Westlake / Richard Stark Parker series take note: you'll like this book).

The book is a page turner and every character in it is richly drawn from every last Chinese houseboy to the composite character studio heads that manipulate and are supposed to be read as the real bad guys of the book. It is, however, needlessly dirty in spots. I'm no prude but caught myself tuning out the narrator in the way I do when a car goes by with an offensive melody turned up to maximum volume. In contrast, the over the top violence doesn't offend because the genre and narrative demand it.

The title of the book, Forbidden Hollywood, correctly evokes the feel of the book. Louche and gossipy if a crime novel can be gossipy (the screen goddess has a secret one doesn't encounter every day) and also makes me think of that series of cheaply printed paperbacks (Hollywood Babylon) that were nothing but anecdotes of drinking, drugs and sex in Hollywood. Having said all that I still liked it. Recommended with reservations - don't tell my English teachers, my minister, or my wife.

Reviewed by Frank Wardega, September 2002

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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