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Product Details
Atria, September 2009
Hardcover, 512 pages
ISBN-10: 143915614X
ISBN-13: 9781439156148
Description
From the author of The Good German and Los Alamos comes a mesmerising tale of old Hollywood glamour, post-war espionage, and one man’s determination to discover the truth behind his brother’s death . . .
Hollywood, 1945. Ben Collier returns from war to the news that his brother Daniel has died in mysterious circumstances. The papers say that it was an accident, but others suspect suicide. Daniel was a celebrated filmmaker; a heroic figure who helped many prominent German intellectuals escape Europe before the war and then settled in Los Angeles with his beautiful wife, Liesl. Why would a man with such a bright future take his own life? Could he have been murdered?
Ben is determined to uncover the truth and uses his friendship with Continental Studios boss Sol Lasner to penetrate the maze of studio politics and Hollywood myths. Beneath the surface shine of the movie business lies a darker world where even the biggest stars and star-makers are vulnerable to old secrets being exposed and old loyalties tested . .
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How did you come to write this book?
When I was writing The Good German, a novel about a city (Berlin) physically and morally devastated by the war, I became interested in what happened to the people who'd managed to get out-- the exiles who were part of the great intellectual diaspora of the 30s. I was particularly interested in the emigres who ended up in Los Angeles (Thomas Mann, Brecht, Schonberg, Stravinsky, an endless, impressive list), partly because so few of us know about their time there and partly because it seemed to me an anomaly, an inherently dramatic collision of cultures: the keepers of the High Culture of old Europe suddenly adrift in a city of soda fountains and Betty Grable movies. I also thought their perspective would be a unique way of looking at Hollywood-- which, of course, was the real subject of the book. Stardust started with the Germans, but ended up as a book about the studio system at the very height of its success (in 1946 more Americans went to the movies than would ever go again), just before it came under siege by politicians determined to use some of its stardust for their own purposes.
"Spectacular in every way...wonderfully imagined, wonderfully written, an urgent personal mystery set against the sweep of glamorous and sinister history. Joseph Kanon owns this corner of the literary landscape and it's a joy to see him reassert his title with such emphatic authority."
-- Lee Child
"The new Joe Kanon is one of the best, Stardust is the perfect combination of intrigue and accurate history brought to life."
-- Alan Furst
"Stardust is sensational! No one writes period fiction with the same style and suspense - not to mention substance - as Joseph Kanon. A terrific read."
-- Scott Turow
"In Stardust, Kanon rescues postwar Los Angeles from noir clichés....Hovering over it all, like a freakish fog off the Pacific, is the shadow of the Holocaust, its enormity only now becoming apparent....[Kanon] operates with an intelligence that briskly evokes the atmosphere of a vanished era."
-- The New York Times Book Review
"A delicious synthesis of menace and glamour, historical fact and rich imagination....Among the real movie people making appearances here is Paulette Goddard -- just one element of a perfect setting for a story in which nothing is obvious."
-- The Seattle Times
Book Reporter, October 10, 2009
...affiliation with it? Or is the senator on a personal vendetta? There’s a lot going on in STARDUST: suspected murder, loyalty hearings, Auschwitz horrors, war stories, romance and family secrets. And as unlikely as it may seem, it all comes ...
Dallas Morning News, October 6, 2009
...of whom can concoct just as heady, relentless a plot as anything involving symbols or codes. To wit: Joseph Kanon, whose ahem literary thriller Stardust is so engrossing it kept me from even taking a peek into The Lost Symbol, which was ...
Denver Post, October 4, 2009
...Stardust, by Joseph Kanon, $27.99. James Ellroy fans will find a lot to like in this gritty look at post-World War II Hollywood from Edgar-winner Kanon, author of 'Los Alamos ...
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 21, 2009
...The World War II years have long interested novelist Joseph Kanon, from his first book, 'Los Alamos,' about dirty work at the Manhattan Project. His new one, 'Stardust' (Atria Books, $27.95), opens just after the war in Hollywood, but ...
Joseph Kanon's Books
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The Good GermanWith World War II finally ending, Jake Geismar, former Berlin correspondent for CBS, has wangled one of the coveted press slots for the Potsdam...Read More
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