Pay or Play

by Jon Boorstin

A filmmaker presents a satirical novel about Hollywood that follows the career of a young screenwriter whose script attracts a star and a top studio head, which turns out to be a mixed blessing

Genres: Fiction

278 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1997

About the author

JON BOORSTIN is a writer and filmmaker who works in a broad range of media. His novel The Newsboys’ Lodging-House won the New York Society Library Book Award for Historical Fiction, and Publishers Weekly called his novel Pay or Play “the definitive send-up of Hollywood” in a starred review. He made the Oscar®-nominated documentary Exploratorium; created Time Mobile, a pioneer prototype video game, for Charles Eames and IBM; wrote the IMAX film To the Limit, winner of the Geode Award for best IMAX film; was Associate Producer on All The President’s Men; and wrote and, with director Alan J. Pakula, produced the thriller Dream Lover, winner of the Grand Prix at the Festival du Cinéma Fantastique in Avoriaz, France. He is also the co-creator (and show-runner) of the television series Three Moons over Milford, a People Magazine “Must See” hour comedy about the end of the world. Boorstin has written a book on practical film theory, The Hollywood Eye, re-issued as Making Movies Work and widely used in film schools for the past twenty years. He has taught film at USC, the American Film Institute, and around the world, including as Fulbright professor at the National Film Institute in Pune, India. He is a member of the Writers Guild of America, the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities at USC, and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. His current novel, Mabel and Me, published in April, concerns the tumultuous life of Queen of Comedy Mabel Normand, and the invention of the movies.
Find him at jonboorstin.com

Reviews

[Jon Boorstin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, I wrote it, so it's five stars in my book of life. My first novel, after much film-making and screenwriting, a humbling and a thrilling experience. I tried to capture what pushed people like me into the movies, and how that shaped our lives, for better and for worse; the nutty nobility, and sometimes the tragedy, of putting movies first. Inspired by Waugh's comic skewering of journalism, Scoop. I like to think it inspired Tropic Thunder, which came out after, and also concerns an action hero who goes native on a jungle shoot, but who knows?

[Kitten McCreery-Navis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this book up for .25 at the YMCA monthly book sale and it has been the "fast food novel" I carried to read in scattered bits of downtime at work.
Flimsy characters, a scattered story, and the occasional poorly developed sex scene. But, it's amusing enough and takes more than a few good jabs at Hollywood as an industry. So, a good "fast food" option. It has no real value but it fills a void when you have no other options or motivation.