Getting Garbo

August 9, 2004
Growing up in a "quasi-slum" in 1940s and '50s Brooklyn, Reva Hess thought of the radio as her best friend, so it's no surprise she turned out to be obsessed by stars of the studio and screen. Now living in Santa Monica, Calif., with her difficult, alcoholic mother, 19-year-old Reva hangs around the fringes of premieres scavenging autographs and trying to figure out what to do with her life. Roy Darnell, an old hero of hers from her Brooklyn radio days, is now a Hollywood B-lister who moves among the A-listers (Bogart, Bacall, Burt Lancaster), and his narration alternates with Reva's—and also with that of his alter ego, Jack Havoc, the hardboiled detective Roy portrays on TV and, increasingly, in real life. When, after a bad divorce, Roy accidentally kills his ex-wife, Adrienne, "Beverly Hills interior decorator to the stars," and realizes Reva can place him at the crime scene, he knows that he'll need to make sure the girl doesn't talk. But Reva is going through her own emotional battle—and she wouldn't betray an old friend, would she? An energetic, if uneven, portrait of the stars and the starstruck, this novel offers a dash of old-time Hollywood glitz and an ending that's cinematic and bittersweet. Agent, Bob Diforio.

August 1, 2004
Set in 1950s Hollywood, Ludwig's story features many real-life figures: Bogie, Jack Warner, and Burt Lancaster among them. Much more interesting than the name-dropping is Ludwig's take on Tinseltown as seen through the eyes of two fictional characters: actor Roy Darnell and fan Reva Hess. Roy starts out doing radio voices in New York, and avid autograph-seeker Reva becomes his biggest fan. When Roy moves to Hollywood to star in the macho " Jack Havoc" TV series, Reva and her mother soon follow. Life is going fine for Roy, except for two impediments: his contract with Warner and his wife, Addie. After catching him with another woman, Addie hopes to take Roy to the cleaners in a divorce. Warner refuses to let Roy out of his contract, and when Roy's lawyer finds a legal loophole, the Old School studio head blackballs Roy with every other studio. Imagined conversations between Roy and alter ego Jack Havoc get old fast, but the novel still works as an insider's look at Hollywood in the no-holds-barred studio era. A natural for fans of Edward Wright's similar John Ray Horn series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)