List of Hollywood novels

This is a list of Hollywood novels i.e., notable fiction about the American film and television industry and associated culture. The Hollywood novel is not to be confused with the Los Angeles novel, which is a novel set in Los Angeles and environs but not overtly about the movie business and its effect on the lives of industry participants and moviegoers. For instance, the works of Paul Beatty, Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, and Aldous Huxley's Ape and Essence are Los Angeles novels but not Hollywood novels; The Oxford Companion to English Literature deems Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust a standard example of the Hollywood novel.[1]

The Hollywood novel genre dates to 1916 and is the "only American regional genre determined by a specific industry."[2] Hollywood novels portray the entertainment industry as "glitzy, powerful, and often sleazy."[3] According to the New York Society Library, "Yes, there is a part of Los Angeles called Hollywood, but the Hollywood of our imagination is so much more. It is the locus of the motion picture industry. Home to stars and producers and writers. A glamorous place. A place that is quintessentially American—where strivers and connivers can reinvent themselves and where there is always the possibility of being discovered. For better or worse, it has helped to define our country to ourselves and to the world. It is easy to see why writers have taken it up as a subject so frequently."[4]

According to author Michael Friedman in Publishers Weekly, "My informal taxonomy revealed that, as far as subject is concerned, Hollywood novels tend to fall into the following loose categories: moguls (Fitzgerald), divas (McCourt, Vidal), train wrecks (Stone, Didion), ingénues en route to stardom (Lambert), foolish dreams of being discovered (West, McCoy), and Brits who have had enough of our philistine ways and ersatz culture and return home to civilization (Waugh, Wodehouse)."[5]

Author Title Year
Katherine Albert Remember Valerie March 1939
Clive Barker Coldheart Canyon 2001
Cal R. Barnes True Grandeur 2017
William Boyd The New Confessions 1987
Ray Bradbury A Graveyard for Lunatics 1990
Christopher Bram Father of Frankenstein 1996
Gwen Bristow Tomorrow Is Forever 1943
Brock Brower The Late Great Creature 1971
Charles Bukowski Hollywood 1989
Edgar Rice Burroughs The Girl from Hollywood 1922
James M. Cain Serenade 1937
Don Carpenter A Couple of Comedians 1979
Don Carpenter The True Life Story of Jody McKeegan 1975
Don Carpenter Turnaround 1981
Robert Carson Love Affair 1958
Raymond Chandler The Little Sister 1949
Jackie Collins Hollywood Wives 1983
Ray Connolly Shadows on a Wall 1995
Robert Crais Lullaby Town 1992
Charles Dennis The Dealmakers 1981
Joan Didion Play It as It Lays 1970
John Gregory Dunne True Confessions 1977
James Ellroy The Big Nowhere 1988
James Ellroy The Black Dahlia 1987
James Ellroy L.A. Confidential 1990
James Ellroy White Jazz 1992
Henry Farrell What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 1960
Peter Farrelly The Comedy Writer 1998
Carrie Fisher Postcards From the Edge 1987
Steve Fisher I Wake Up Screaming 1941
F. Scott Fitzgerald The Last Tycoon 1941
F. Scott Fitzgerald The Pat Hobby Stories 1962
Paula Fox The Western Coast 1972
Daniel Fuchs The Golden West 1989
C.W. Gortner Marlene 2016
Richard Grenier The Marrakesh One-Two 1983
Doris Grumbach The Missing Person 1981
Richard Hallas (Eric Knight) You Play the Black and the Red Comes Up 1938
MacDonald Harris Screenplay 1982
Alfred Hayes My Face for the World to See 1958
Tom E. Huff Marabelle 1980
Aldous Huxley After Many a Summer 1939
Clive James The Silver Castle 1996
Jay Richard Kennedy Prince Bart 1952
Amanda Lee Koe Delayed Rays of a Star 2019
Michael Korda Queenie 1985
Gavin Lambert The Goodbye People 1971
Gavin Lambert Inside Daisy Clover 1963
Gavin Lambert Running Time 1982
Gavin Lambert The Slide Area 1959
Janet Leigh The Dream Factory 2002
Janet Leigh House of Destiny 1995
Elmore Leonard Get Shorty 1990
Anita Loos A Mouse Is Born 1951
Anita Loos No Mother to Guide Her 1961
Norman Mailer The Deer Park 1955
Alan Marcus Of Streets and Stars 1960
Armistead Maupin Maybe the Moon 1992
James McCourt Kaye Warfaring in "Avenged" 1985
Horace McCoy I Should Have Stayed Home 1938
Horace McCoy They Shoot Horses, Don't They? 1935
Larry McMurtry Somebody's Darling 1978
Jennifer Niven Hollywood Blonde 2014
Joyce Carol Oates Blonde 2000
Darcy O'Brien A Way of Life, Like Any Other 1977
John O'Hara Hope of Heaven 1938
John O'Hara The Big Laugh 1962
Stewart O'Nan West of Sunset 2015
James Patterson Mary, Mary 2006
Tim Powers Medusa's Web 2016
Taylor Jenkins Reid The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo 2017
Harold Robbins The Carpetbaggers 1961
Harold Robbins The Dream Merchants 1949
Theodore Roszak Flicker 1991
Thomas Sanchez The Zoot Suit Murders 1978
Budd Schulberg The Disenchanted 1950
Budd Schulberg What Makes Sammy Run? 1941
Pat Silver-Lasky Ride The Tiger 2010
Amy Sohn The Actress 2014
Martha Southgate Third Girl from the Left 2006
Matthew Specktor American Dream Machine 2014
C.K. Stead Sister Hollywood 1989
Robert Stone Children of Light 1986
Jacqueline Susann Valley of the Dolls 1966
Adriana Trigiani All the Stars in the Heavens 2016
Gore Vidal Hollywood 1990
Peter Viertel White Hunter Black Heart 1953
Bruce Wagner Dead Stars 2012
Bruce Wagner I'm Losing You 1996
Nathanael West The Day of the Locust 1939
Harry Leon Wilson Merton of the Movies 1922
Gary K. Wolf Who Censored Roger Rabbit? 1981
  1. ^ Birch, Dinah, ed. (2009). "Hollywood novel". The Oxford Companion to English Literature (7th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-280687-1.
  2. ^ Brooker-Bowers, Nancy (1983). The Hollywood Novel: An American Literary Genre (PDF) (Thesis). Drake University.
  3. ^ Canfield, David; Rankin, Seija Rankin (November 7, 2022). "The most irresistible Hollywood novels". EW.com. Retrieved 2023-07-27.
  4. ^ "Hollywood Novels". New York Society Library. Retrieved 2023-07-27.
  5. ^ Friedman, Michael (June 5, 2015). "10 Best Hollywood Novels". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2023-07-27.