Shadow of a Lion

(price-clipped) [very light shelfwear to book; the jacket is also just lightly worn at the lower extremities, and has a touch of soiling to the rear panel]. This "novel of Hollywood writers in exile" is an interesting attempt to deal novelistically with the Hollywood blacklist period, via the invention of a fictional Academy Award-winning director, "Max Seaman," who is forced into European exile as a consequence of his naming of names (105 of them) in testimony before HUAC. "Bitterly regarded as an informer, a traitor, by the film community's giants and mediocre talents alike, Max becomes the focus of a consuming hatred among his colleagues that ranges from brutal antagonism to icy, withering scorn." The character is sort of a biographical amalgam, with no direct model. The book occasionally strives for a documentary-like quality by quoting verbatim passages from various witnesses' testimony -- although those characters seems to be mostly invented also, i.e. "Robert L. Tanner," a "friendly witness" who gladly supplies the Committee with the names (also all fictional) or Screen Writers Guild members who were Communists; and "Louis Whitehorn," who seems to represent such figures as Dalton Trumbo and others who attempted to defy the Committee and paid the price. (One real-life exception is Bertolt Brecht, whose actual HUAC testimony is quoted verbatim.) ****NOTE that additional postage charges will be assessed for international shipping of this moderately heavy book; if this concerns you, please contact us for a shipping quote before placing your order. As always at ReadInk, domestic Media Mail shipping is free.****

Product Info

Publisher: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan

Type: Used

Binding: Hardcover

First Edition

Seller Info

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