Producer Morris’s entertaining second novel...zeros in on a particular male fantasy, and acknowledges the importance of entertainment and honoring the past, both personal and historic.
The interesting part about this book is the indirect storytelling about a person who feels stuck, suffers from depression, and therefore tries to find something exciting new to get his nose in ... Overall, I really would have liked to read more about Bella and not about her research about famous people, but more like looking behind the genius mind of hers. I would have wished for a little bit more of what is going on in Hollywood and how it really works. For me, I would have enjoyed a little more flavor to the writing style and perhaps a little less detail in a few scenes that caused me to get lost for a second or two while reading.
Though Reynolds’s plans for renewal end up wildly off the mark, he ultimately finds something of value. While delightedly skewering the privileged entertainment industry lifestyle, Morris uses Reynolds’s travails and the divisions of the Civil War period to make larger points about the current state of America.
In a wry take on the male midlife crisis ... Morris gives him some fine speeches about history and war. But amid all the comic material, the hero’s quasi-crisis—a 'feeling that nothing [is] worth half a try'—may just be the biggest shell among the hail of potshots at Hollywood culture. A well-written work that some readers may find entertains more than it engages.
