by John O'Hara
First published 1939
A screenwriter in his mid-thirties sits in his Los Angeles apartment, nursing another disappointment about his stalled career. His modest successes feel hollow against the weight of unfulfilled ambitions. He has fallen hard for a young woman in her twenties, but she remains distant, offering only polite attention to his advances. She carries an idealism that both attracts and intimidates him. Her world feels separate from his cynical understanding of Hollywood's machinery. When her estranged father arrives in Los Angeles on business, the fragile dynamic between the three shifts dramatically. The father's presence awakens old wounds and sets events in motion that will destroy any possibility of happiness. The screenwriter watches helplessly as circumstances spiral beyond anyone's control. O'Hara strips away any romantic illusions, leaving his characters exposed to forces they cannot master or escape.
Genres: fiction, drama, literary-fiction, contemporary
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Los Angeles
Period: 20th-century
387 pages · Hardcover · Faber & Faber
Content warnings: depression, emotional-abuse