Hollywood Boulevard
Описание книги
Ardennes Thrush is an award winning movie star who has suddenly and mysteriously quit acting at the height of her fame. She is in Hollywood, at the Hotel Muse, visiting Andre, her husband, who is a world-renowned director and is at work on his latest movie. Ardennes, a contemplative woman, is a bit of a voyeur, and as she watches the comings and goings in the hotel, she begins to realize that something is strange; perhaps she is being stalked. When a box of dead flowers arrives she calls the police. And when the detective arrives to investigate, their attraction is immediate, powerful, and quickly carnal.After their first encounter, desire, guilt and fear combine in Ardennes, and the tension rises in the strange, labyrinthine Hotel Muse. Then her stalker arrives at the door of her suite, pulls a gun, forces Ardennes to leave and locks her in a closet. While the detective searches for the actress, we watch rapt as Ardennes, in the darkest of narrow straits, not only tries to free herself but also ponders why this is happening to her, how she brought herself here, and what all the men in her life have had to do with it.At once a noir novel and a psychological thriller about the complicated emotions of a beautiful, modern celebrity, Hollywood Boulevard is downright compelling. And Ardennes Thrush is a character that readers won’t be able to take their eyes off of.
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Hollywood Boulevard
Iused to think about quitting all the time. Then I quit, and now I still think about it. Maybe the dream slipped away, or got sullied into something no longer recognizable, or came at too high a price— as in be careful what you wish for. So I float between a sleeping dream and real life. At the moment I'm holed up at the hotel swimming pool, a terraced affair set below a pricey Japanese restaurant, with narrow gardens guests can visit via little golden keys that open short red gates to various paths. It's off- season, the unheated pool is glacial; leaves fall in, float a while, and sink. A Shinto gate sits importantly on the pool's south side, like offspring of the restaurant above. The landscaping is uneven: artificial waterfalls, a miniature pomegranate tree, the Shinto gate aligned with a chain- link fence facing nondescript Hollywood back streets below; calm and common all at once.
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"Ah, the tourista. Drink some tequila— hair of the dog— and swallow raw garlic cloves; you will live."
We set a date for the following week and met at a little Moroccan place in Los Feliz, a café, very relaxed. I nearly got lost finding the place. Andre had lamb. I hate lamb, so I ate a tabouli dish with hummus, baba ghanoush, and some sort of spicy fish. He did nearly all the talking. He told me his theories on film, which were vast and contradictory. I started thinking, at heart he's an anarchist— if he isn't nuts— all the while picturing Joe making faces behind his back, as in Who is this guy? Possibly he noticed my concentration wandering and got off theory and told a very funny story of the making of his first film and how he hadn't really intended to be a filmmaker. "I think I would have preferred to be a painter," he said, as if the idea had just come to him and I was not seated opposite, listening. "If only because with painting one can erase. One is freer. There are too many details that can barely be controlled in making films."
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