Synopsis
<div>Published to great acclaim and adapted into a celebrated movie by Robert Altman, <i>The Player</i> defined the new Hollywood and became a cult classic. In <i>The Return of the Player</i>, film executive Griffin Mill, who got away with murder, is out to make a killing. Determined to escape a Hollywood and a world he believes are dying, Griffin needs a safe haven, a private island somewhere in the South Pacific with an airstrip and high ground. But he’s broke, down to his last $6 million. He has one last desperate plan, to quit the studio and convince Phil Ginsberg, an almost billionaire who aspires to “really savage wealth,” to become his partner. Meanwhile, his personal life is falling apart. He is impotent and allergic to Viagra. His second marriage is broken, perhaps permanently, and he’s beginning to think he shouldn’t have divorced his first wife. And if that’s not enough, Griffin even has to commit another murder when his plan nearly collapses. With <i>The Return of the Player</i>, his fourth novel, Tolkin again delivers a brilliant, incisive portrait of power, wealth, family, and contemporary society gone out of control.</div>
Review
"Truly outrageous and actually endearing." -- Sherryl Connelly
"Tolkin's understated style and over-the-top characters continue to amaze."
"Mr. Tolkin remains Impressive as a scorched-earth social satirist." -- Janet Maslin
"Mill's antiheroic effort to wring love and meaning from a loveless and meaningless life is heartfelt and cynical."
"The finest novel of Hollywood since The Last Tycoon. I loved It, and when I wasn't laughing aloud, I was rereading it, gasping at the athletics and soul of the thing." -- Jon Robin Baitz
"Tolkin himself is a dying breed: among the last of those in Hollywood who move comfortably from big picture to small project, from screenwriting to directing to novel-writing." -- Matthew Debord
"Lively and freshly biting . . . The Return of the Player is classic satire . . . and with its gimiet eye on today's spiritual weariness and cash frenzy, is very much a novel of this time and moment." -- David Walton
"Poor Griffin Mill--once a mover--is down to his last six million dollars, and that isn't the worst of it in Tolkin's sharply observed sequel to The Player. Tolkin's till got a firm hold on Tinseltown's fluttery pulse."
"By far the widest-ranging novel of Tolkin's four-book career . . . The Return of the Player opens up the lives of the people surrounding ÝGriffin¨, which creates Tolkin's most fully realized world yet." -- Todd Peterson
"This crisp amorality tale boasts enviable verbal energy, thanks to a hectoring omniscient voice that blends the accents of an Old Testament prophet with those of a favor-currying film industry press agent. . . . This is vivid, nasty fun."
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