Book Review -- City of Whores

Zingy one-line repartee and poolside parties with Clark Gable and Tallulah Bankhead, exquisitely decorated Hollywood mansions and the best tailor-made suits, trans-Atlantic European cruises and dinners with the rich and famous, such was the life of a nineteen fifties Hollywood star as depicted in the popular magazines  -- the dream for any small town boy or girl who wanted to make it big in Tinseltown.  But behind the glamour, behind all the success and glitz often lay hidden pools of stinking corruption and enough greed and lust to sink the Titanic. Working the well-cultivated ground of California depravity, City of Whores by Mark B. Perry weaves a fantastic and entirely captivating chronicle of the descent into madness and paranoia of a Hollywood threesome that can't ever face the truth or consequences of their illicit sexual attractions.

Underdog Texan Dan Root, a good looker with trembling hands and a self-medicating, Mary Jane jones, drives west to escape his small-town childhood and abusive parents, only to fall into the clutches of a powerful producer, Millie Langford and his famous actress wife Lilly Sinclair. The two provide Root with an alternative family and a ready made Hollywood career complete with screen tests and access to studio roles in exchange for sexual services for Lilly and, in good time, a sexual partner for the tortured and self-loathing Millie. When it becomes clear that he is being toyed with, Dan, now with the ironically ridiculous stage name of Dexter Gaines, tries to break loose but finds he is too enamored of the good life, and of Millie, to get away. It is only years later, with the sordid deaths of Millie and Lilly, that Dexter/Dan gains peace of mind.

Told from the first person perspective of the ingénue Root, City of Whores makes an entirely believable case, explaining and demystifying the world of closeted homosexual shame, pertinent still today. But as with many Hollywood exposes, our solidarity with the denizens of the city of whores comes clouded with a sense of inevitability as we witness the downfalls and tragic unravelings suffered by those enticed by such sordid and empty dreams. Nonetheless, Mr. Perry has produced a page-turner replete with authentic period details, excellent and witty dialogue, and a layered plot worthy of the finest of Hollywood's golden age.

This debut novel by Perry, a veteran television writer and producer of award winning shows such as Northern Exposure and Picket Fences, marks an impressive foray into the world of fiction, although at times it reads like a padded out screenplay with insert here tabs for expanded visual and other sensory details. But there is no doubt that City of Whores is sure to make a splash with readers fond of the behind the scenes, tell-all Hollywood memoirs which provided Mr. Perry with much of his inspiration.

Where to purchase City of Whores

Amazon - Kindle
Amazon - Paperback
B&N Nook

Anthony Caplan is the author of Savior, available as an ebook from Harvard Square Editions and on Amazon.

The Winner is The Way

The Oscar's awards ceremony, in all its glitz and panache, is an annual celebration of box office winners. Here's a thumbs up to a movie I saw recently that I thought was a brave attempt to do an honest, human and uplifting story with little melodrama, no special effects, no twisted glorying in violence, sex or the worst of human traits. The title of the movie -- The Way -- gives a hint of its appeal to spiritual seekers or those among us who are just plain tired of being hammered about the head with the crassness of slick, seamless, vanilla storytelling. Given that the main favorite in tonight's best film category is a French silent, black and white movie called The Artist, there must be many in the film world today who feel the same way. The Way, a small, personal, literally off-the-beaten-path type of film is, like The Artist, harking back to a past, only a past that does not include many of the accouterments of modern technology nor the comforts many of us take for granted in our daily lives.
A collaboration between long-time Hollywood stalwarts Emilio Estevez and his father Martin Sheen. the movie tells the story of a California opthalmologist who travels to Spain to recover the remains of his son who has died on the first day of backpacking across northern Spain along the ancient trail known as El Camino, or The Way, to the cathedral of St. James. The Martin Sheen character, distraught and sick of the pretensions and emptiness of his Southern California golf club life, sets out to complete the journey to honor his son's memory and perhaps to find a reason to live for himself. On the way he befriends an odd assortment of pilgrims, all on the path for personal reasons. The three month journey draws them together despite their differences, as they learn to overcome their personal and cultural ticks. Each of them has a different stance on the faith necessary to finish their respective hikes, but each is touched and changed in an important way by the end. It's a sort of quasi-documentary riff on the Wizard of Oz theme, with an over the hill, grumpy, but quintessentially Martin Sheen-like American innocent as Dorothy. The main character is of course the pilgrimage itself -- the beautiful Basque country and the baroque, fantastic cathedrals of Burgos and Santiago de Compostela.  I can't say it's the winner of any particular category, but anybody who sees it will feel like they've won.