Bright Shiny Morning - Softcover

Frey, James

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0719522137 ISBN 13: 9780719522130

Publisher: John Murray, 2009

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Welcome to LA. City of contradictions.

It is home to movie stars and down-and-outs. Palm-lined beaches and gridlock. Shopping sprees and gun sprees.

Bright Shiny Morning takes a wild ride through the ultimate metropolis, where glittering excess rubs shoulders with seedy depravity. Frey’s trademark filmic snapshots zoom in on the parallel lives of diverse characters, bringing their egos and ideals, hopes and despairs, anxieties and absurdities vividly to life.

Some suffer, like the otherworldly wino who tries to save a spoilt teenage runaway. Others gain, like the canny talent agent who turns sexual harassment to blackmailing advantage. Some are loaded, or grounded, and have luck on their side. Others, like the countless actresses-turned-hookers, or schoolboys-turned-gangsters, are doomed.

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Review:

'An absolute triumph of a novel. In fact it’s so good that it makes Frey’s real-life resurrection from crooked biographer to great American novelist far more impressive . . . Frey, a natural novelist to his fingertips, hits the deeper truths with this honest, vibrant and tender portrait of Los Angeles and the American dream . . . It can be no exaggeration to say that Bright Shiny Morning amounts to the literary comeback of the decade . . . James Frey is probably one of the finest and most important writers to have emerged in recent years'

(Irvine Welsh, Guardian )

'A sparkling narrative, which doesn’t shrink from exposing the city’s seamier side but ultimately is a huge celebration'

(Daily Mail )

'Frey writes with pace and energy' (Times Literary Supplement )

'A compulsive piece of popular fiction . . . He’s an excellent entertainer . . . Frey can tell a story and has a fine eye for the variegated economic milieux in which his characters travel. So what if, by the end, you come away thinking the novel superficial and lacking in original insight? This is Los Angeles, baby. And in LA superficiality has its own integrity'

(The Times )

‘Frey clearly has a knack for telling tales – this story of interweaving, never-meeting strangers in LA is an engrossing read’

(The Times )

'An intriguing novel peopled by characters whose presence lingers once reading has ceased' (List )

'A furiously good storyteller'

(New York Times )

'Taking the scattergun approach of his bestseller, A Million Little Pieces, [Frey] exposes the grubby reality of the Hollywood dream'

(Marie Claire )

'Totally addictive'

(Time Out )

'An immaculately written novel about a kaleidoscope of characters living in LA'

(Tatler )

About the Author: