Epically entertained ... It retains the noirish sensibility of the era ... Readers of his previous fiction...know that Marra is a masterful writer with characters that are deep, true and often very funny. But Mercury Pictures Presents is as much a novel about an era as it is a novel about its characters ... It asks the big questions ... And it answers, as all good fiction does, by enthralling its readers with stories that are personal, alive and heartbreaking.
The author’s fans...will recognize his elegant resolution of tangled disasters, his heartbreaking poignancy, his eye for historical curiosities that exceed the parameters of fiction. But the emotional range here is narrower, the record of human cruelty more subtle. And if Mercury Pictures Presents doesn’t generate the impact of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, well, that’s an impossibly high standard ... A complicated novel ... Marra unspools this period comedy with so much old-time snappy wit that Mercury Pictures Presents should come with popcorn and a 78-ounce Coke. But then, suddenly, the scene shifts to a far darker era — the first in a series of maneuvers indicating the thin membrane separating humor and horror in this novel ... With these tangled events, Marra demonstrates his remarkable ability to capture the intricate cruelties of political and social collapse ... The novel’s most fascinating move is the way it teases out the complications of realism ... This novel isn’t sustained merely by its surreal images, its archival discoveries or even its sharp critique of American hypocrisy. What matters, ultimately, is Marra’s ear for catching the subtle grace notes in ordinary people’s lives. If reading Mercury Pictures Presents sometimes feels like watching several movies simultaneously, you can trust that the novel will eventually resolve into focus with a moment of radical compassion that emits no more noise than a sigh.
Elegant ... We’ve met Feldman’s type before, in just about every comically cockeyed portrayal of show business ever. And Marra, whose sleek, darting sentences are sharp enough that we don’t mind, sets us up with a few glimpses of the familiar ... But just when we think we know the story Marra is telling here, he pulls the rug out from under us ... Marra’s sublime dexterity brings these worlds into a natural-seeming alignment, but it also sets up a tonal disparity the novel never fully resolves ... Mercury Pictures Presents [has a] fleet, often funny, narrative omniscience, an effervescent mood that remains even in its bleakest moments and settings ... Then again, this indeterminacy may be the point. That Marra’s novel doesn’t square into being either a portrait of Fascist horror or a rambunctious tale of immigrants propping up a studio during what might remain even now Hollywood’s most tumultuous decade ever, but rather remains something of both, is its ultimate strength: its way of asserting itself, without ever needing to declare itself, on the side of art.
It seems right and proper for a novel concerning World War II-era Italian fascism to highlight how easy it is for all of us to fall prey to false romantic narratives. All the better if the author is Anthony Marra ... He can conjure both a bleak Italian hut and a gossipy American household, both a farcically bickering pair of siblings and the interior world of a Chinese American actor. He also knows exactly where to insert historical anecdotes and when to opt for pure invention, weaving it all together with witty asides ... The first third of Mercury feels aptly cinematic, whirling readers through half a dozen scenes so varied that they feel like a passel of movie trailers, more evocative than narrative ... Is this too pat a conclusion, an affirmation of the American passion for happy endings as manipulative as the faux authenticity that sets Eddie on edge? Marra has, though, been smart enough to sprinkle his novel with unhappier endings, so that when this one good thing happens it feels earned, even … authentic ... Although Mercury Pictures Presents is uneven and downright discursive in many places, its cinematic scope ultimately achieves a grandeur beyond its particulars. Besides, we could all use a grand narrative now and then, especially now, when such a thing seems to recede past the horizon with every passing day.
Movies were not to stoke fury toward Hitler and Mussolini specifically, nor toward Germans and Italians in general, but instead at the 'militaristic system' that defined their countries...This was a tricky, if not impossible, request. And Anthony Marra’s third novel, Mercury Pictures Presents, is a witty, carefully turned commentary on the futility and hypocrisy of Hollywood’s—and America’s—efforts to fulfill it ... largely a pleasure, its characterizations rich with detail ... If Marra aspires to the manipulations of a Hollywood epic, though, his novel also bears some of an epic’s flaws. His observations sometimes feel forced ... If this novel were a movie, it would be the director’s cut: immersive but too full of its creator’s whims...But why make a tighter, more realistic novel? Marra’s grandiosity is a lure for a straightforward truth: that notions of liberty and freedom are easily undone for the sake of a more palatable story.
I’ve said in the past in this space that when you see me dedicating a column to the virtues of a single book or author, I am not acting as a book critic or book reviewer, but as a book enthusiast who has had a reading experience so enjoyable, that he can’t help but share this enjoyment with the wider world. The subject of today’s enthusiasm is Anthony Marra’s latest novel, Mercury Pictures Presents ... With Mercury Pictures Presents he cements himself as one of the most deft and most enjoyable novelists working today ... The result is a fully inhabited world where one moment you are in the midst of a thriller...and in the next you might be in a bit of slapstick comedy ... No character is too small for their entire story to be told. Marra uses a technique of prolepsis (flash forward) to fill us in on the entire life trajectory of a person we may have encountered for only a few paragraphs ... I could go on for pages about my admiration for Marra’s technique and execution...but what I most recall is the general warmth of feeling every time I picked up the book and spent time in that world.
Sweeping ... Maria's story line is the novel's most robust and rewarding ... The plot grows unwieldy as it spins off in myriad directions ... It makes for a rich world, but one that feels unfocused.
A sweeping book ... Marra is a deft and convincing writer with a sharp turn of phrase and a dark sense of humour that ignites every page ... Marra’s biting commentary elevates it to more than a beach read. Those who already know the Californian-dwelling Marra from his first two books...will relish his return, which took him seven years to research and write and which will win him committed new fans and, if there is any literary justice, prizes.
... big, messy, ambitious and rambling ... braids together the overly familiar and bracingly fresh – surely this is the first novel to drop a canny, dynamic Italian woman into 1940s Hollywood. Yet even before the author lists his sources in nearly six pages of credits at the novel’s end, we know he has done his homework, because scarcely a note goes unstruck, whether laying on period details such as the Pacific Electric Red Car, Perino’s restaurant and Bullock’s department store, or – in the contemporary historical novel’s version of political correctness – bringing on stage every possible variant of the Hollywood player, including a Chinese American, a Japanese American, an African American and a recognizable raft of German-Jewish émigrés. Yes, they were all there; but do they all need to be here? ... The relationship Marra draws between Maria and Artie produces more natural storytelling ... Regrettably long stretches of the Hollywood chapters read (and sound) like the B-movies they poke such gentle fun at, with nearly every character ready with a smart crack or perfectly honed riposte ... More subtle are the passages set in Italy...Marra inhabits this world with tender curiosity. He shows how, in times of conflict and displacement, surrogate families constitute themselves from the most unlikely figures. He gives generous attention to subordinate characters such as Concetta ... Memorable, also, are Giuseppe’s letters to his daughter, which a local police officer censors by slicing out parts of the text; a lifetime later, in the most beautiful scene in the novel, Maria will receive and reassemble these missing words ... Even in the Los Angeles sections the Italian characters bring out the best in Marra, who deepens Maria by investigating her complicated relationship with her bitter but resilient mother, Annunziata, and retains an affectionate regard for her colourful Italian aunts, who, it turns out, are inspired by, and bear the names of, Anthony Marra’s own great-aunts, Mimi, Lala and Pep. Mine what (and whom) you know for the authentic: is this the takeaway from Mercury Pictures Presents?
It is that voice that sets [Marra] apart and above: a quiet, compassionate, observational wit that he uses both to highlight essentially tragic circumstances and to soothe them. While that voice remains and speaks throughout his latest novel, Mercury Pictures Presents, there’s an antic quality here that we’re not used to from Marra. It’s almost as though he received editorial notes equivalent to a woman being told to smile more ... though, I’ll state up front that, in the end, Marra melted my heart, and I view Mercury as a worthy addition to the author’s canon ... Particularly early on, the narration is rife with extended, sardonic descriptions, no more so that when we’re spending time with Maria’s great aunts, who serve as a kind of comic chorus. Characters banter in sharpened one-liners, which is perhaps fitting in the Hollywood studio, but it’s there among the Old-World Italians, too. At times, it feels like we’ve stumbled into an Aaron Sorkin script ... And yet — and yet — the ineffable magic of Marra’s prose, its ability to break his reader’s heart with the lightest touch, is everywhere. Each cameo character is completely human ... showcases imperfect people in an imperfect world groping to connect, all from an author who continues to pen perfection.
Outstanding ... Marra's belief that hope and the human spirit can triumph over hatred and cynicism never falters. He has crafted a dazzling historical novel that sparkles with buoyant humor and resilient characters, in spite of the atrocities that entangle them ... Mercury Pictures Presents is a marvelously smart and delightfully absorbing novel from a writer who continues to one-up himself, and appears to take great joy in doing so.
Marra skillfully alternates between Hollywood and Italy, dexterously weaving the two threads together when a young man, Nino Picone, arrives at Mercury Pictures fresh from San Lorenzo with news of Giuseppe. Marra’s prose is fluid and sprightly; each sentence is imbued with wit and heart and dances to its own internal rhythm. The dialogue is crisp and filled with ripostes and underline-worthy bon mots. The characters are simultaneously larger than life and all too human, utterly memorable. The historically iconic settings are brought sensuously to life by Marra’s cinematic eye. Marra has ascended to the top of the literary ranks.
An energetic, wildly comical tale that's bursting with copious historical details. Amid all the action and plot twists, it's also a serious examination of immigration and xenophobia, identity and impersonation, and art, propaganda and censorship ... Marra glides effortlessly between a number of characters and their pasts, presents and futures, all of which are complicated by World War II ... While Marra's many threads are intricately woven, they can occasionally be overwhelming, and the novel is at its strongest when focused on Maria, Vincent and their immediate families. Despite some meandering, Mercury Pictures Presents is full of passion, energy and exuberance, just like the Hollywood world it portrays.
Meticulously crafted ... The plot is intricate ... While Marra’s pleasure in the details and argot of the past occasionally feels like overkill, this tough-minded, funny outing exemplifies what Maria calls the democratic promise of 'the miniaturist’s gaze,' in which 'all were worthy.' Thanks to Marra, the pleasure is contagious.
This one builds a discrete world and shows how its denizens are shaped—often warped—by circumstance. But the Hollywood setting feels overfamiliar and the characters curiously uninvolving. While the prose frequently sings, there are also ripely overwritten passages ... The World War II Hollywood setting is colorful, but it’s just a B picture.
