The Hollywood Trilogy: A Couple of Comedians, The True Story of Jody McKeegan, and Turnaround

by Don Carpenter

Don Carpenter wrote about Hollywood like no one else. The Hollywood Trilogy collects, for the first time, Carpenter’s most significant Hollywood novels—A Couple of Comedians, Turnaround and The True Life Story of Jody McKeegan—into a single volume. Here readers will find the jungle of B-movie Hollywood with no attempt to dress up the rawness and vulgarity of this glamorous” town. Carpenter’s characters occupy every facet of Hollywood—there are naïve and shy young men trying to break into the business, one-picture wonders, comedy duos, beautiful starlets and middle-aged moguls wondering how exactly they got where they are. All are drawn with the wit, pace and above all, the authenticity that were Don Carpenter’s trademarks.

Following the Spring 2014 publication of Friday at Enrico’s, Carpenter’s forgotten novel, finished and championed by Jonathan Lethem, interest in Carpenter’s work is at an all-time high. The Hollywood Trilogy will introduce readers to an entirely new facet of Carpenter’s work, just waiting to be discovered by a contemporary audience.

Genres: Fiction, American Fiction, United States, Literary Fiction, Collections, Film

533 pages, Paperback

First published August 18, 2014

About the author

Don Carpenter was an American writer, best known as the author of Hard Rain Falling. He wrote numerous novels, novellas, short stories and screenplays over the course of a 22-year career that took him from a childhood in Berkeley and the Pacific Northwest to the corridors of power and ego in Hollywood. A close observer of human frailty, his writing depicted marginal characters like pool sharks, prisoners and drug dealers, as well as movie moguls and struggling actors. Although lauded by critics and fellow writers alike, Carpenter's novels and stories never reached a mass audience and he supported himself with extensive work for Hollywood. Facing a mounting series of debilitating illnesses, Don Carpenter committed suicide in 1995.

Reviews

[AC · Rating 4 out of 5]

NYRB publishes a lot of leftovers. But when they published Don Carpenter's Hard Rain Falling (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...) they hit on a real gem, a "6-star" read. And with that, Carpenter, an old drinking buddy of Richard Brautigan, was rediscovered.

This has led to the republication of this triad of novellas, and the getting of Jonathen Lethem to clean up an unpublished manuscript (Friday at Enrico's) and get that out under both their names.

Of the triad in this collection, I read the first two. A Couple of Comedians was supposed to be the best. And it's pretty good (4-stars). But, in fact, The True Life Story of Jody McKeegan is better (5-stars). It is a rough, tough, look at a roughened character in the Hollywood movie-making scene, where Carpenter worked for many years. An an honest book, that reflects something true about the times in which he lived. That, for me, at least, is still the primary purpose of prose.

The last novella, Turnaround..., is supposed to be weaker -- but who knows. I'll save it for another day, and call this book a 4.5.

At the age of 64, his health started to fail. He had diabetes, tuburculosus, severe retinitis -- and so got tired and put a bullet in his chest. But anyone who could write like this shows us a little bit about ourselves -- he paid a big price for that -- for being a 'teacher' -- and it's our job to pay him back by reading what he left behind.

[William Lashner · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a startling good piece of work by Don Carpenter. I hadn't read anything by him before this trilogy and I have to say the whole thing is a thrilling piece of prose. In a way, each of the individual novels leaves you hanging, but together they provide a brilliant portrait of Hollywood in a certain era and, more interestingly, of Carpenter as a writer. He takes his time with scenes, his characters are wildly conflicted, his vision of power and art is clear-eyed and jaded, but ultimately optimistic. I loved the final moment in A COUPLE OF COMEDIANS, so much energy and bonhomie. He is an absolute master and if you happen to fall into this review take my advice and barrel into the thing -- you won't be disappointed. Just don't expect formulaic storytelling because, unusual for a screenwriter, Carpenter doesn't hew to traditional story forms.

[Jeff Tucker · Rating 2 out of 5]

After reading A Couple of Comedians and most of The True Story of Jody McKeegan, I'm giving up on this Trilogy. I'm surprised that this book has been rated highly by many readers. I guess the drugs, sex and treatment of women simply as sex objects might be typical of Hollywood but it sure gets tedious in Don Carpenter's writing. His books just didn't work for me.

[Jim Cherry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read Don Carpenter’s “Friday’s at Enrico’s” and was enamored of the find of Carpenter’s work. I immediately ordered “The Hollywood Trilogy” which includes Carpenter’s novels “A Couple of Comedians,” “The True Life Story of Jody McKeegan,” and “Turnaround.”

When I got “The Hollywood Trilogy” I excitedly tore into it starting at the beginning with “A Couple of Comedians” which is about a Martin and Lewis type of comedy/filmstar duo set in the 70’s. To be honest, the story was disappointing. While it is a technically well written, it didn’t give any suspension of disbelief and I didn’t buy into the story, it seemed a little flat to me. So, I put the book aside and didn’t immediately start in on the second novel. “The True Life Story of Jody McKeegan.” Waiting to read the second novel turned out to be a mistake.

Jody McKeegan is a character who appears in “A Couple of Comedians” (without it being a spoiler, Jody McKeegan also appears in a cameo in the third novel of the trilogy “Turnaround” and is the only character to appear in all three novels). “The True Life Story of Jody McKeegan” is about the rise of a movie star, going into the backstory of her childhood so the reader understands the motivations of her character and the approach she takes to stardom. Notice I didn’t say the rise of an actress or the approach she took to becoming an actress because Jody’s story is about the road of stardom and the personality of someone who wants to be a star. The thing that astonished me was this story was in no way disappointing! Its writing is scintillating and without using too many critiquing clichés, it kept me turning the pages.
If “The True Life Story of Jody McKeegan” is scintillating the “Turnaround” is fireworks! “Turnaround” follows three characters, a struggling writer, a wunderkind director, and a studio head, as their lives intersect in the creation of a movie and how each utilizes the power available to them.

It turns out “The Hollywood Trilogy” is an ascending scale. Although the novels aren‘t in chronological order of their publication, I think they‘re in order of the quality of the books which shows Carpenter’s growth as a writer. While not neat and chronologically consistent. It does illustrate Carpenter’s internal growth from a novel that is technically well done story, but lacks spark to his more mature works that show that growth and ineffable spark that are the hallmarks of great writing.

[Jeff Buddle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of the three novels here, "The True Story of Jody McKeegan" is by far the best. Nuanced and rich, it's the story of a poor Portland, Oregon girl who grows up to become a movie star. To be honest however, my favorite part of her story is the Portland section. The pool halls and cheap restaurants, fleabag apartments, and down-on-their-luck working stiffs are far more interesting than the lifestyles of the rich and drug addled Hollywood habitués.

Second then is "Turnaround," which begins with a handful of disparate Hollywood types: a motion picture mogul, successful actors and actresses, an Italian countess, and a aspiring screenwriter. The characters eventually come together to produce the screenwriter's work. But before getting there they drink, snort mountains of cocaine, and swap partners like it was the 70s. Well, it actually is the 70s, so there's that.

Like "Jody McKeegan," "Turnaround" has its best moments when our aspiring screenwriter is still aspiring, working as a writer at a trade publication during the day and churning out scripts at night. He too lives in a world of cheap apartments, corner donut shops, porno stores and barrooms. He too drinks too much, smokes too much pot and takes whatever sex is on offer.

Number three in terms of order should be "A Couple of Comedians," the tale of a Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis style team of actors. Their story begins with a bang, a veritable road trip fueled by coke and pot and booze. They should be making a movie, but are doing their level best to avoid it. Hey, there are women to screw, drugs to take, parties to attend. This is the only novel of the three that winds down too much, in which a speedy plot dissipates into ennui.

My major problem with all these books is how women are depicted. They're mainly sex objects, something to screw, something that wants to screw. They use sex to get what they want, or are used to provide sex. Even Jody McKeegan, the strongest woman character, is content to be a kept woman for awhile. She willingly gives up her aspirations to be the trophy girlfriend of a rich and powerful man.

These are good books. They are not nearly as good as "Hard Rain Falling" or "Friday's at Enrico's," but worthy reading. However, if you're new to Don Carpenter, DO NOT start here. Start with "Hard Rain" because it's really his best.

[Todd · Rating 5 out of 5]

All three books are absolutely brilliant. I'm not sure what else to say. One of the very best of writers, in my opinion. I recommend not only this book but all of his books.

[Dan Kasten · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first heard about Don Carpenter from a George Pelecanos novel in which a character raved about Hard Rain Falling. With good reason. It is a crime novel that is a cut above. No crime novels here. This trilogy seems more like Carpenter reliving his Hollywood days from a post traumatic stress perspective. I am pretty sure Carpenter himself is a character who is mentioned in Turnaround, which references an older writer who once wrote for a Western and had a treatment in which the young hot shot producer had an interest. Jody McKeegan has a significant cameo in A Couple of Comedians, is featured in one highly memorable work, and is referenced in Turnaround. I am pretty sure that the only other character that appears in all three novels is Hollywood itself, like a lurching monster blindly grasped by all the characters, touching a different part of the monster and thinking they know the whole beast. I read some reviews that suggested Turnaround was not up to the standard of the other two books. I did not feel that way. Maybe I liked the part of the monster the characters in Turnaround were touching. The True Story of Jody McKeegan has some shocking and awful events, and A Couple of Comedians have it pretty good, but rarely realize it. Carpenter is a great, great writer, wise and dark and brooding, and I mourn him every time I read him. It’s hard to think of a man who had all that going on in his brain deciding to pull the trigger, literally. I read this after reading Sam Wasson’s The Big Goodbye, a brilliant non-fiction book on the making of Chinatown and the making of the men and women involved in making Chinatown. I was not quite ready to leave the world of 70s moviemaking at the end of that book, and wanted to bask in some more good writing on the era and subject. Mission accomplished. Thanks, Mr. Carpenter.

[Stew Hamblin]

The book is really two books written in similar but different styles. The first part is a brilliant story of two teenage sisters growing up in Portland, Oregon in the 40's and 50's. It reminded me of Richard Yates, if Yates wrote about fucked up poor people instead of fucked up middle class people. Sentence by sentence, Carpenter has a gift. The second part is one of the sisters later in life, starring in a Hollywood B movie. This part is just as well-written, but Carpenter's problem is linking the two stories in a thematic way. It's like he wrote the first part, ran into a dead end, and wrote another book using the same character. There's a missing middle. Still, the prose is anything but prosiac.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don Carpenter satirizes and eviscerates Hollywood denizens and customs with these three excellent novels which are a fun read. I enjoyed all three but my favorite was "Turnaround" because of the in depth characterizations. His prose style is much lighter than his best known book, "Hard Rain Falling".

I don't know why this man doesn't have more recognition - he writes beautifully and has memorable plot lines and characters. The books are mildly dated in the areas of recreational drugs and women as sex objects but the 1970s Hollywood artifice is hard to resist and they were written for the time period.

I have been alternating these books with a set of four novels by Horace McCoy, an earlier and grittier writer and the contrast is striking.

[Demetrios Dolios · Rating 5 out of 5]

great trilogy

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

4*

[Quenton Cassidy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The novels get progressively better culminating in The Turnaround. Gardener’s writing captures at specific time in Hollywood history that is a bygone era.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Better on setting than on sets

Like even his best effort, Hard Rain Falling (by its conclusion), and his middling unfinished Fridays at Enrico’s (in its second half), the plots in the trilogy also delve into the satirical postwar and, here, countercultural era of Hollywood. As a screenwriter, certainly Don Carpenter knew his subjects and setting. Trouble is, in the first installment, A Couple of Characters, the straight man (in the classic comedy sense of the supposed Golden Age), Dave Ogilvie’s vigorous if sex-obsessed and tediously mundane voice remains the best quality of this novel. There’s little in the sendup of either Vegas or SoCal to sustain the point, and I zoned out, skimming pages, after the initial setup, promising insights, failed to deliver beyond a drawn-out yammering of chicks, parties, kibitzing, and “lost weekends.”

Jody McKeegan appears as just another actress trying to make it, in that first narrative before entering as the protagonist in her own story. Similar to main figures in his other novels, she grows up hard scrabbling, pot smoking, and school ditching in louche, grubby midcentury Portland, a refreshingly unfamiliar place at least decades ago for most readers, and as I’m familiar firsthand with both the Cascadian and Californian contexts, if from a later generation of adulthood (as if a child of these parents), I can attest to its accuracy and verisimilitude. Unsurprisingly, given his profession, Carpenter works most comfortably and convincingly when sticking to dialogue among scrappers and schemers, seeking either to pull one over on the rubes or to get out of the dead grasp of the dreary working class and dilapidated street hustlers.

Her tale overlaps with the studio and surroundings of A Couple of Characters. Her upbringing, such as it is, echoes that of many deadbeats and dropouts in Hard Rain; the focus on “it’s who you know and sleep with” common to Friday’s’ calculating cast of cursing creative content providers of the celluloid era who cannot afford to stop their manipulative self-promoting habits, while always waiting for the next producer’s call or agent’s pitch—or jaded promise.

Unfortunately the same glitch bogging down Carpenter’s other projects beginning in the Pacific Northwest mires titular Jody, as it’s not much more engrossing to follow deluded drunken and stoned middle-aged egocentric bores employed in film than in literary publication, bent on sex and drugs while lacking depth.

Same goes for Jerry Rexford (btw surname’s a street in Beverly Hills) who in pairing with Elektra Soong (great moniker as is scion Dael Tennyson) and leftovers from the previous books wanders into a cushy gig churning out scripts. It’s lacking the backstory of Jody, instead as with Couple preferring to stick to the heart of the heat generated by sex, sets, smog, and whatever the period when John Travolta could vie with Paul Newman for leading roles.

Carpenter’s more assured at evoking the ambience of the late 70s although the details blur into the same sunny or sultry gaze permeating the previous narratives. The constant getting high and getting laid gets to me; not out of prudery but boredom. The drifting layabouts and dull shills populating these sordid pages don’t compel revelations worth their rowdy repetition or rawness. They may arch toward
breakthroughs in salaries or seductions but payoffs rankle.

Begs credibility that Jerry after residing awhile in Hollywood wouldn’t know where the iconic restaurant Musso & Frank’s was located on the boulevard of the same name, and his ignorance of certain aspects of Angeleno everyday life as endured by those like myself and mine born and raised if not totally removed from cinema than at least well “below the credits.” This insular and smug society doesn’t create identification with its unctuous and relentlessly corrupt cabal…

If Carpenter via Jerry might have, say, given attention to Orfeo, or those toiling away at Pet Care Update trade magazine, the result might not have been so titillating but it might have created sympathy for those upon whom the elite depend, exploit, and disdain…

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

This feels like even more of a throwback than it actually is. I kept imagining it set in the thirties or forties, only to bump into some reference making it clear that the book is actually set in the seventies. I think part of that is due to Carpenter's writing, which is perfectly evocative, without drowning in detail, and part of it is due to my own romanticization of Hollywood and celebrity.

This is a great piece of writing with brilliant characterization. My only criticism is that the actual plots are a little lackluster, perhaps because of how closely they revolve around movie production. Most of the plot-based tension is just some variation on whether or not the movie will get made (c.f. Entourage, and not in a good way).

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book a lot, particularly the first and last stories. The middle story about Jody McKeegan was not as fun to read and left me hanging, but ever so slightly gives reason for the 'Trilogy' title. The editing in the last part of the last story left a lot to be desired; Carpenter would not have been happy. Hollywood does seem to be about a step above street trash just as we imagined and Carpenter gives us a view just a hair above that.

[George Ilsley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Became increasingly bored with these three novels. Wished I'd stopped after the first, or second. The volume itself has some typesetting flaws, and the format is unfortunate (small type, wide pages).
Will I read his last novel, completed by Jonathan Letham? Who knows. I need a break from this writer.