By Design. A Hollywood Novel. - Softcover

Grant, Richard E.

2.6

82 ratings by Goodreads

9780330368292: By Design. A Hollywood Novel.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 033036829X ISBN 13: 9780330368292

Publisher: Picador, 1999

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‘A roller-coaster ride through Hollywood . . . The action zings along from page to page and sometimes even from word to word . . . Grant has been round the Hollywood course himself . . . His experience is evident in a gruesomely credible narrative which offers delights from the first sentence to the fade-out’ Gerald Kaufman, Daily Telegraph

‘An electrifying act . . . By Design satirizes celebrity and the pecking order of Tinseltown where the accepted unit of measurement is billboard billing . . . there are moments of laugh-out-loud hilarity . . . The jokes alone are worth the price of admission’ Alasdair Riley, The Times

‘Grant’s debut novel of cursing Hollywood caricatures is . . . the type of wild yarn we’d like to believe is behind movie-industry rumours of “filming difficulties”. Grant . . . clearly loved spinning it’ GQ

‘This is a book about pretence and self-image; it’s about the face you show, and the face you don’t show . . . It’s very precisely observed; you understand how the glamour and the horror are intertwined . . . Who, you wonder, in the state of prurient curiosity the book produces, would play these characters if the book were to be filmed?’ William Leith, Observer

‘Vituperative, scurrilous, and extremely funny . . . a fine, vicious little novel’ Uncut

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Review:

It must be comforting for Richard E. Grant to know that should his acting career ever take a serious dive (God forbid, darling!), he, at least, has another means of making a living. Grant's second book (the first was his wildly successful autobiography, With Nails), will undoubtedly be bought by everyone who is anyone in the weird and wonderful world of Hollywood--if only to make sure they are in it. Fortunately, as Grant declares on page one, this is guaranteed.

The book's narrator, Vyvian, is a well-heeled, white, African-born man (spookily like the author), whose sexual preference is never totally clear. He and childhood friend Marga, whose teenage acne has scarred more than just her skin, escape the boredom of Africa for the marvels of Sunset Boulevard.

Vyv becomes a designer (interiors, lives, minds, you name it) and professional "friend" to the stars, while Marga, who opts to play life as a deaf-mute, is the celebrities' chosen masseuse. When the Hollywood disaster movie to end all movies goes into production ("The Poseidon Adventure meets Star Wars"), the rich and famous need more than just a rubdown and a sympathetic confidante to whom they can unload their woes. --Carey Green

Book Description:

‘Like listening to Withnail if he’d made it and gone west’ GQ

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