“Beautiful Ruins” by Jess Walter
A selection for this year’s Tournament of Books, Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins was so hard to find for free/cheap that I chose to rent it from the library for $.25 a day. Even then it was hard to find a rental copy. But once started, it sucked me in and pulled me along like a riptide till I closed the book, very satisfied.
It’s told in alternating viewpoints and alternating times, yet was easy to follow. There’s a film exec, his young assistant, an aspiring screenwriter, an old Italian man who met a movie star in his youth, and that’s just in the beginning. This is a romance, Hollywood history, and mystery. The relationship between the young woman and the movie exec reminded me a great deal of Sasha and Benny in A Visit from the Goon Squad. It’s well written escapism. Loved it. Not as much as Orphan Master’s Son, but still, a lot.
April 12th, 2013 at 7:25 pm
I enjoyed this one too. Fascinating characters. I wanted to see how it all played out.