Bobby Steingrove is an outsider in his large, Jewish family. His Uncle Stanley owns and runs a motion picture studio in Hollywood during the golden era of the 1930s but Bobby’s father alone amongst the Steingrove brothers is dependent on Stanley’s charity. When Bobby gets into Yale, though, a new world opens up to him. He falls in with a moneyed clique of amoral young East Coast men. Handsome and clever, Bobby is able to keep up with them. He also falls in love and after an elegant party on Fifth Avenue he is willingly led into Central Park.
Ultimately his aspirations change, and he goes back to Los Angeles to work in his uncle’s studio whose biggest star, Laura Hampshire, insists that Stanley films a new novel as a vehicle for her. What Bobby knows is that the novel, which was written by one of his Yale friends, includes a disguised version of himself as a protagonist. With mixed motives, Bobby is propelled into writing the script and taking over as director, but when his past catches up with him, he discovers how far family loyalty goes. In a world where talent can be rewarded but acceptance and belonging are fluid, it is never clear who is being seduced or by whom.
Author David Wurtzel practised at the English Bar and for several years was consultant editor of the Bar’s magazine, Counsel. His first novel, Thomas Lyster: A Cambridge Novel was published by Brilliance Books.
‘A really good pace makes for a highly enjoyable read.’ – The Middle Templar
‘A witty, surprising and captivating novel about Hollywood in the 1930s’ – Richard Zimler, author of The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon and The Incandescent Threads
Fiction, published September 2023
Paperback original
ISBN 978–1–9163613–6–2 £11.99
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