Reds, Germans, and Hollywood Lust

It happens too often: a writer dies, and I’m reminded by the obituaries of books I meant to read but never did. Otto Friedrich’s City of Nets was a perfect example; I read all the reviews when that work came out in 1986, but it wasn’t until after Friedrich’s death in 1995 that I fell in love with his history of Hollywood in the 1940s.

The part that interested me most were the chapters about the German émigrés who settled in Los Angeles during and after World War II. Novelist and social critic Thomas Mann was the dean; his older brother Heinrich was less popular and returned to East Germany after the war. Other residents included Franz Werfel (Song of Bernadette) and his wife, Alma, who had been married to Gustav Mahler and never let anyone forget it; and that cynical smoker of cheap cigars, Bertold Brecht.

I can’t be certain, but I think that publisher-turned-novelist Joseph Kanon (who won an Edgar Award for his superb 1997 novel, Los Alamos, and whose equally excellent The Good German was turned into a film starring George Clooney) read those same chapters of City of Nets before starting to write his absolutely riveting and award-worthy new novel, Stardust (Atria).

Ben Collier, recently returned to the United States from service in Europe with the Signal Corps, travels to California in 1946 after his sister-in-law, Liesl, informs him that his B-movie director brother, Danny, has suffered a serious fall from a hotel window. Was it an accident or a suicide attempt? Ben arrives in time to witness his brother briefly emerge from a coma, but soon afterward Danny dies. While Liesl believes the suicide theory, Ben suspects that someone pushed Danny to his death, and he turns amateur detective in order to identify the culprit. Liesl and Ben soon begin a scorching affair, which is of course too good to last. Then Ben learns that his brother, formerly an active Communist, was playing a part in an anti-Communist crusade launched by a congressman against the American film industry.

Guest-starring a dazzling blend of real Tinseltown players (Paulette Goddard, Jack Warner, agent Abe Lastfogel) and fictional creations (keep your eye on Bunny, the former child star who is now a top studio exec), Stardust deserves to be a featured attraction on everyone’s reading list.