Queer People (Lost American Fiction) - hardcover

A brilliantly savage story, "Queer People "is, according to Budd Schulberg, "a racy testament to an era as totally van-ished as the civilization of the Aztecs," and if not "the "Hollywood novel is "at least a truly seminal work." Today's readers will recognize in this long-forgotten Hollywood novel the seeds of three longer-lived ones, "The Day of the Locust,"" What Makes Sammy Run?,"" "and "The Last Tycoon. "They may also recognize Whitey, the hero of the Grahams' novel, as a forerunner of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Pat Hobby. The central figure in the novel is an archetypal newspaper reporter who drifts to Hollywood. Whitey discovers the social microcosm of the studio-people, and finds himself in his ele-ment. He penetrates strange places and encounters queer people--the story conference, the three-day party, the titans and the moguls. When a murder ends his interlude he leaves Hollywood as casually as he discovered it. Originally published in 1930 "Queer People "was a scandalous "roman a clef, "irreverent to the "industry," and totally amoral--qualities lacking in later Hol-lywood fiction. Hence it is at once an important social document and an ex-citing original work.