Tinsel

by William Goldman

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385290314
• ISBN13: 9780385290319
• Release Date: January 1979
• Publisher: Delacorte Press
• Length: 342 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.

Customer Reviews

GIVE 'EM H*LL, ESTELLE!

By far, the most (and only) fascinating female character in this Hollywood novel, published about 30 years ago if my memory serves, is not one of the three beautiful former starlets who are desperate to make a grand comeback--or intro--in a blockbuster movie based on Marilyn Monroe's suicide. Rather, it's Estelle Garvey, the unattractive, middle-aged, brilliant, and very street-smart wife of the producer, who manages to bring her straying husband to his knees for his own good through clever manipulation using his many infidelities of decades. Estelle is the only woman in the novel whom I respected. As for the rest, Ginger was a rich, self-absorbed, spoiled brat, Dixie was just plain stupid, and poor "Pig" was an industrial-strength codependent who needed professional help big-time for her zero self-esteem. (So did Dixie, for that matter.) A fabulous, fascinating novel, and I must admit, I read it to death!

A fictional "Adventures in the Screen Trade."

William Goldman's "Tinsel" is a story of Hollywood and the curious and often vulnerable personalities involved in the movie business. Its framing device is the casting of a new movie about the life and death of a sex symbol, loosely based on Marilyn Monroe. We meet the money and creative people behind the movie and the various starlets hoping for a shot at the incredibly juicy role. As usual with a William Goldman novel, we are privy to the thoughts of the various characters and, as usual, there are surprises along the way. But the best thing about the novel is the feeling of Hollywood that it manages to convey, the blend of sordidness and glamour, the money and egos involved in each film, and the terrible attraction that a starmaking role has for actors and actresses. Many authors have tried to bring Hollywood to life in their novels, but few have succeeded as well as Goldman has with "Tinsel."

Tinsel

As a longtime William Goldman fan, I went into this book expecting to like it. I loved it. Tinsel details the making of a movie; like most of Goldman's books, it's not the story he tells (although it's a fabulous plot) but the way he tells it. In his inimitable way, Goldman rips Hollywood apart and exposes it for everything it is, everything it wishes it was, and everything it can't help being.