I Should Have Stayed Home: A Novel

by Horace McCoy

McCoy’s classic, slyly funny novel about a pair of young actors trying to make it in a pitiless Hollywood

For aspiring actor Ralph Carston, all roads lead to Hollywood—but none seem to be direct or easy. The handsome Georgia native immediately finds that his Southern accent is one strike against him, though he manages to eke out a living as an extra alongside his pretty roommate Mona Matthews. But the big break for these two young hopefuls finally arrives in a curious way. When their third roommate is sentenced to three years in prison for shoplifting, Mona’s emotional courtroom outburst wins her and Ralph notoriety—and entrée into new social circles. Ralph becomes the self-loathing plaything of Ethel Smithers, a wealthy widow who promises much but has no interest in delivering. Mona faces romantic nightmares of her own while also being blacklisted for joining a union. A precursor to Sunset Boulevard, and reminiscent of Nathanael West, I Should Have Stayed Home is a fantastically hardboiled portrait of Tinseltown in the thirties.

 

This ebook features an extended biography of Horace McCoy.

Genres: Noir, Fiction, Mystery, Crime, Novels, The United States Of America, Classics

126 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1938

About the author

Horace Stanley McCoy (1897–1955) was an American novelist whose gritty, hardboiled novels documented the hardships Americans faced during the Depression and post-war periods. McCoy grew up in Tennessee and Texas; after serving in the air force during World War I, he worked as a journalist, film actor, and screenplay writer, and is author of five novels including They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1935) and the noir classic Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1948). Though underappreciated in his own time, McCoy is now recognized as a peer of Dashiell Hammett and James Cain. He died in Beverly Hills, California, in 1955.

Reviews

[Sam Quixote · Rating 2 out of 5]

Set in 1930s Hollywood, a strapping young Southern lad tries to make it as a movie star but only manages to catch the eye of a wealthy old socialite who makes him her toyboy. Lessons - really obvious ones - are learnt…

Horace McCoy’s I Should Have Stayed Home (a title that sounds like something Droopy Dog would say!) is rightly unknown compared to his much better novel They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

Maybe at the time - the 1930s - it was more shocking to most to find out that Hollywood is a bad place full of bad people but, nearly 100 years later on and with the likes of Harvey Weinstein in the headlines everywhere, it stopped being news to everyone a long time ago.

Though known as a pulp writer, McCoy’s material is less trashy and more quaint when seen through today’s eyes: one “red hot” scene features the guy and the old lady watching a porno and then having sex - gasp…

What’s definitely more shocking is the breathtaking racism of our “hero”. In the first party scene, he wants to beat up a black man for kissing a white woman. Yowzah. I guess you have to make allowances for the time - civil rights was decades away, segregation in many states was still in force, and miscegenation was strongly taboo - but it doesn’t make modern readers like me want to root for the protagonist at all!

Then again, nothing made me like the guy - he was much too stupid! He wants to be a movie star but it never occurs to him to take acting lessons and when an agent tells him to lose the southern accent he doesn’t even try. Just sleep with a rich old lady with connections and it’ll all be fine - until you step in front of the camera! What a dope.

McCoy’s writing is quite snappy - it is an eminently readable novella - and I did want to see where it was all headed, if only to see how batty the pulpy melodrama could get (the answer, disappointingly, is not very - but there are a couple of silly OTT moments here and there). Still, it’s definitely not enough to make it a good book and I can easily see why I Should Have Stayed at Home is out of print - if you’re interested in this writer check out McCoy’s much better book They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? instead.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the same vein as McCoy's "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" this tale concerns two struggling young Hollywood wannabes, a feisty girl who's hip to the BS and corruption of Tinseltown and her roommate she kinda has a crush on, a dopey farmboy who ends up getting led around by a lecherous old dowager who beds him down with promises of getting him a big break in the pictures.
A 1930's "Mulholland Drive" minus the lesbiana, you won't be able to put this one down.

[Φώτης Καραμπεσίνης · Rating 3 out of 5]

Κατώτερο του εξαιρετικού, υπαρξιακού noir "Σκοτώνουν τα άλογα..." (μοναδικού στο είδος του), στην ίδια πάντως κατεύθυνση. Μη απαραίτητο.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining story about a rather naive twenty-three-old man from Georgia named Ralph Carston who goes to Hollywood to become a movie star. He shares a flat with Mona Matthews, and they find work as extras in the motion picture business. They attend posh Hollywood parties and restaurants where Ralph runs into the rich socialite Ethel Smithers who takes a shine to him. She keeps promising Ralph that she has the right connections to land him a screen test as they carouse around Hollywood. There are a few humorous scenes, especially when the older, wiser Ethel seduces young Ralph, and the dialogue is often snappy like found in an old movie. Barbara Stanwyck makes a cameo appearance along with the other marquee acting stars of the day. It's a fast read, and a somewhat hardboiled look at Tinsel Town.

[Carla Remy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since Horace McCoy is considered a documenter of the depression (They Shoot Horses, Don't They?) this book makes sense. The title refers to Hollywood (the idea and the literal town). There is no crime in this book, darkness, but not noir darkness.
It's about doing anything for Hollywood success. Adoraby, this book is from 1938 and the main character thinks "the good old days of film" are past. Well, the book doesn't take place at MGM.
The characters are "extras." I know this world, though in my day we call it "background." And, let me tell you, this is still going on. Except people are perhaps less innocent now then they were in the day of this book. Or maybe they're not, I guess you still gotta think you might have a chance.
I was not an actor, but I did do background and found everything quite interesting to observe,.

[Toby · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this awesome old Penguin whilst location scouting for my upcoming film production, I honestly didn't mean to buy anything but ended up with half a dozen really cool titles to check off of my lists.

I've not read any McCoy before, I saw the movie of They Shoot Horses and felt like I had a good idea of what to expect but I didn't really expect to be comparing it to Day of the Locust, which I did and unfavourably so unfortunately. It's a good little book but not something you expect to find in the green crime penguin. There's not much in the way of crime going on here but what's there is a good quality piece of writing.

[Jade · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my first Horace McCoy book--of all of the authors I have hunted in my noir fiction scavenger hunt, he has been the hardest to find. I am not exactly sure why--he's written plenty of books and his work "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" was a pretty famous and revered film, directed by Sidney Pollack. My library did not have that particular book but they had several others and I started this one first. It reminded me a lot of Day of the Locust--a sordid but truthful look at Hollywood and it's Dream Factory and the people caught up in it. It does not have the twisted quality of Day of the Locust (which I adore--both film and book) but it made up for it in really great storytelling and an unusual point of view--so often these Hollywood dreams type of stories end up being narrated or about a woman or girl pursuing her dreams and being crushed at every turn. The main character of this book is a young man from Georgia who is living in a platonic relationship with a woman who is also a film extra as he is. All of the casting couch stereotypes are turned upside down here--they still happen--just to a man instead of a woman. As with most noir type books there are plenty of twists and turns and heartbreak around every corner. I blew through this really quickly and intend to head back to my online library and grab another Horace McCoy. It's always so exciting to find a new author to love <3

[Stephen J. Golds · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t quite get this novel. Yeah, it was a pretty well written novel about Hollywood and the wannabe starlets that flock there, but the MC was such a drip and seemed to just go along with the flow of everything. I wasn’t quite sure if he was supposed to have been written this way for some kind of reason. But it left the novel trailing somewhat.
I don’t know.
3/5

[Tosh · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is really no such thing as a bad Hollywood or noir novel. If it's well-written, and tells the tale, it rarely fails. For me, there are usually the exceptional and then there is the enjoyable. "I Should Have Stayed Home" is very enjoyable, but clearly to me, not exceptional. The novel was originally published in 1938, and it does capture that moment in time, with respect to how people see the movie world. Everything else in the world was shit, yet the images of the cinema world were like medicine for those who were spiritually ill or suffering from the effects of the great depression. McCoy's novel clearly expresses his time, but yet for me, it lacks poetry, which makes a noir novel great.

The story is about a farm boy who comes to Hollywood to become, not an actor, but a star. He lives with Mona, who is also an star-want-to-be, but is also quite realistic in her chances in becoming such a professional. On the other hand, Ralph, is quite blind to the world around him, and therefore is an innocent floating in the shit that was / is Hollywood. In the hands of someone like David Goodis, this would have been a trip to the underworld, but McCoy to me, is almost a nay-nay person, wagging his finger towards the Hollywood climate.

There are those who are in, and those outside the Hollywood system or factory. There is a political element, in that it is a world that exploits its people, and I sense McCoy is of that thinking that the system is pretty horrible. There is a strong message that Hollywood is very much of an opium to the great population out there. This may be the case, but it is also like any other business that produces goods for the population, and to be fair to McCoy, I think he conveys that very well. The problem I have with the book is that I find Ralph a huge bore. I kind of hate him, because he's so simple, and on top of that, he's a southern racist. He's a little lamb who lost his way, and he lost in a damned world.

He does come upon good people - for instance Mona, but also one of the producers, who is actually very kind in letting him know that he will never ever make it in Hollywood. Ralph, due to his (stupid) nature, cannot accept that fact. I think reading this novel has to be a total experience than if I actually read the book in 1938. The mind-set of the readers at the time, were going through harsh times, so the promise of a "Hollywood" must have been a given thing or the end of that rainbow, which promises a greater future. McCoy pops that balloon. For me, "Dirty Eddie" by Ludwig Bremlmans is a much better book on Hollywood morals and decadence. Yet, this is a wonderful read, but just not essential for me, with respect to the "Hollywood" novel.

[alessandra falca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lo scrittore di “Non si uccidono così anche i cavalli” bellissimo noir da cui poi Pollack ha tratto un film che se non lo avete visto cercatelo subito ora, alle prese con un romanzo breve sulla vita di due comparse che cercano di diventare attori a Hollywood. Scrittura secca, efficace. Storia amara da cui non si esce. Libro sulla disillusione del “sogno hollywoodiano”. Scrittura cinematografica e lettura piacevolissima.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

McCoy is best known for his three novels: "I Should Have Stayed Home", "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?", and "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye". His major themes: grim reality and the horribly neglected . His depiction of Hollywood in the 30's is still valid; storyline remarkably contemporary.

[Adam Hulse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of course, a book from the late 1930's is going to seem quite dated in some ways but McCoy held my interested right the way through this quick page turner. We find ourselves connected with our two main characters who are stuck in the underbelly of Hollywood with no money and no interest in their acting abilities. Most of the word count is taken by snappy and passionate dialogue that at times reads like an entertaining radio play. Its gritty as you'd expect from McCoy but it doesn't shock as it will have done back when it was released. That being said, there's still plenty of worth in this story full of soul searching and struggles as our main characters stubbornly refuse to return to their home towns in fear of being branded "failures."

[tony · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bruh why did it end so sharply
Nothing was tied up
That was definitely the point

[Lukáš Palán · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bom dia,

Měl jsem zůstat doma je věta, kterou si říkám každou sobotu, neděli, úterý a čtvrtek, tudíž mě velmi zajímalo, jak bude knížka vypadat. Bude tam Palivo jak leží na gauči a hledá ibuprofen? Nebo Palivo jak na benzině ve tři ráno říká "jeišjaúpsěšfnocš?" Ne!

Je to o nějakým frajerovi v Americe, kterej odjel do Holywodu a chce bejt Tom Cruise. Bohužel, velmi brzy zjistí, že autobus ke slávě vede přes zastávky Stará ježibaba a Musím ji voprcat, což ho dost vyleká, a jelikož je panic, začne panic! Do toho se v příběhu potulují další klasické figurky holyvudu třicátých let a říkají věci o slávě a životě, ale nic z toho tedy nebylo nijak mimo standardy této literatury. Za mě tudíž 6,492/10 a když si tohle odpustíte a skočíte rovnou na Koně se střílej, nic se nestane.

[Pop Bop · Rating 4 out of 5]

"First You Dream, Then You Die"

The quote above is from Cornell Woolrich, author of "Rear Window" and other noir classics, and an acknowledged master of 1930's and 40's suspense fiction and roman noir. Woolrich's books weren't based in L.A. or Hollywood, but if you were to combine his sensibility and style, a bit of "Sunset Boulevard" and a heaping helping of Nathaniel West you'd have a decent idea of where Horace McCoy stands. Indeed, it's sort of a shame that you have to walk backwards through Woolrich, James Cain, Hammett, and the rest to get to McCoy since he was in every way their peer. Somewhat forgotten, (despite having written the well known and well regarded "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?"), McCoy is now enjoying something of a renaissance.

And well he should. This is a slim volume, without the violence and hard-boiled despair of some others. This is a book about failure, collapse, heartbreak and the grim reality of 1930's Tinseltown. It perfectly captures the feel of that place at that time, and you are sitting on a bungalow stoop, and circling the pool at high end parties, and walking sun-baked dusty sidewalks just as the characters do.

The great sadness of these books is that the dreams you watch wither and die were hopeless and doomed from the outset. You just know that before the characters do. Inevitable failure. Hey, first you dream, then you die.

Maybe there isn't a single great American novel. But if you rolled up everything that's been written about Hollywood by all of the great writers who have tried to capture some piece of the place, you'd have a great start. This book has an honored place on that shelf.

Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book in exchange for a candid review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to the publisher of this book.

[Suni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hollywood, 1938: Ralph Carston è uno dei tanti giovani di belle speranze che hanno lasciato la provincia sperduta in cui sono nati (in questo caso un paesino della Georgia) per trasferirsi nella Mecca del cinema e inseguire il sogno di diventare star.
Niente va come deve: non solo non c'è lavoro, ma non c'è neanche l'occasione di fare un provino – l'unico che Ralph ha fatto è andato malissimo per colpa del suo accento.
La logica vorrebbe che Ralph tornasse a casa, ma non può farlo, perché nelle lettere alla sua famiglia ha lasciato intendere di aver quasi sfondato e non ha il coraggio di raccontare la verità.
Per puro caso una sera il ragazzo incontra una ricchissima vedova di mezza età, amica di tutta la gente che conta e, soprattutto, ninfomane. Questa donna si invaghisce di lui e vuole farne il suo toy boy, idea che a Ralph fa orrore, ma d'altra parte si rende conto che è un'occasione unica per entrare nel mondo del cinema dalla porta principale e realizzare il suo sogno.
Da questa premessa prende avvio una sequela di tentativi di scendere a compromessi, di impennate di orgoglio, di crisi sempre più profonda, di prese di coscienza e di cocciutaggine nel ripetersi che «se ce l'ha fatta Gary Cooper, posso farcela anch'io!».
Confesso che non ho amato molto questo protagonista che continua a fare e disfare, che non prende mai davvero una decisione, tanto che perfino la risoluzione della vicenda non è opera sua.
Ma il romanzo è scorrevole, ben scritto, con dialoghi quasi cinematografici (McCoy fu anche sceneggiatore) e inoltre racconta il lato oscuro di un mondo di cui in genere, oggi come allora, si vedono solo le luci.

[Kris (My Novelesque Life) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 STARS

(I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review).

Ralph and Mona are down and out movie extras waiting for their big break into Hollywood. As Ralph's accent holds him back he becomes desperate to change his luck. During a court trial of a friend Mona is held for contempt and leads herself and Ralph into Hollywood society. Ralph finds himself being led into a world that will test his morals and desperation.

I immensely enjoyed my first novel by Horace McCoy. McCoy's writing reminds me of Cormac McCarthy and James M. Cain's as it is straight to the point and gritty. We always get the shiny happily ever after stories of the golden age of Hollywood. In "I Should Have Stayed Home" it further opened my eyes to those who do not make as stars. I was grabbed from the opening scene of a court trial to the end of the novel. It was one of my read till I finish novels. I recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys a gripping story.

[Christopher Fulbright · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unbelievably fast and easy read. There wasn't really a whole lot to this short novel, but what there was of it really hit the nail on the head. Anybody who's had a dream and struggles to achieve it gets the way the main character feels in an instant. The only thing keeping me from giving this novel an extra star is the fact there wasn't a whole lot to it other than angst, implied perversions, and a couple of very minor scrapes with the law. I felt like there could have been something happening on another level at times, but in the end, the evidence didn't play out and it was just wishful thinking on my part. Still, it didn;t bore me at any point and I loved the prose here. This is the second book by McCoy that I've read and I feel like he rivals James M. Cain for hard-hitting prose that just gallops across the page. I liked this one.

[Ronald Koltnow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the greatest Hollywood novel ever, McCoy's I SHOULD HAVE STAYED HOME traces the fall of two would-be-Hollywood-stars, a couple of kids inspired by film magazines to go to Tinseltown to find fame and fortune. Our poor sod of a hero, nice-looking but with a too heavy Southern accent, becomes a gigolo. His more worldly roommate tries to keep his feet on the ground. This is a noir, although one of temperament rather than action. There is a death, although it isn't murder; there is theft, although it's merely shoplifting. This is tragedy on a small scale, about delusions created by Hollywood, and subscribed to by the rootless youth of post Depression America.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick and satisfying read, at times brilliant. It's no Day Of The Locust, but it doesn't have to be to win my favor. The party scenes, especially the first and final dinners, are especially divine.

[Michael Thomas Angelo · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was very Day of the Locust as far as mirroring the theme that Hollywood attracts dreamers who are never able to capture the prevailing myth of stardom and end up self destructing. The title is a humorous truth and depressing conclusion of the narrator.

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Grabbed off my shelf (where I'd put it with regular fiction rather than mysteries, oddly) since the Towles collection made me think of it. Rather more Marxist than I'd recalled--on this reading, feels like a continuation of They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, where McCoy treats depression dance marathons as exemplary capitalist practice. Three years on from that, he takes aim at the #1 dream factory as a whole, with Ralph, his dumb boy-toy protagonist, being a walking instantiation of false consciousness. He was a possibly decent stage actor from Georgia who got scouted and had his ticket paid to Hollywood, failed his screen test (was his accent too thick? did he just not pop onscreen?), didn't realize he'd been dismissed, and just hung around; he stands in for everyone seduced by the fantasy. Even at the end, having been tossed around a few more times--he can't even win the boy-toy sweepstakes with the dowager who (unfortunately standard for the period) stands in as the embodiment of capitalist appropriation of bodies--he's still too dumb to realize he's been rejected once more. At least his roommate/lover Mona (though their relationship already seems in the past when the book starts) knows what's up and hops off the treadmill by the end.

As I recalled, this is appropriately bilious about fan magazines, gossip columnists, the casting couch, and all the other parasitical institutions that attended this golden age. As with Fitzgerald's Pat Hobby stories, there are bits and pieces about the real world--a strike by stars to help extras get fair pay, a brief mention of studio censorship that accedes to Nazi demands even as Hitler's violence accelerates, a glancing discussion of why proletarian consciousness isn't more widespread among Hollywood's proletariat. It's less all-encompassing in its vision of the end times than West's Day of the Locust, published the next year (do I need to reread? Feel like I remember that one pretty well), but it adds to my sense that a lot of people were quite on to what was good and bad about the movies quite early in the game. A fast, nasty read that isn't exactly "fun" in any normal sense, but worth recovering.

Excellently, I'd kept the receipt, which I wish I did every time. Bought at Moe's on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, Dec. 8, 1996, at 4:03pm. It was a Sunday, and it cost $10.80, a 10% new-book discount. I presume I was rewarding myself for stumbling almost all the way to the end of my first semester of HS teaching.

[David Fulmer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about an ensemble of minor Hollywood characters, almost all of whom are looking, unsuccessfully, for their big break in Tinseltown. Ralph Carston is the narrator, a young man from Georgia who was discovered while acting in a play and invited to California. Once he gets there he does a few screen tests but is told that his Southern accent will keep him out of the pictures except as an extra. He lives with Mona Matthews but their relationship is ambiguous. The main conflict in the book is between them and Mrs. Smithers, a wealthy widow who hosts lavish parties at her home where nude women emerge from the pool, stag films are shown (title: A Night Out), and Hollywood big shots mingle. When she pursues Ralph he’s divided between his desire for any help breaking into movies he can get and his repulsion from her and her seeming masochistic fetish for being slapped across the face. A few other minor characters include a studio publicity man, and a friend who goes to jail for shoplifting. This book takes the same raw materials as The Day of the Locust but it comes up with something considerably lesser. It’s a minor novel of Hollywood, full of the debauchery, loneliness, and regret found around the margins of the movie capital.

[Marco Camillieri · Rating 4 out of 5]

A passo di noir, McCoy pratica una satira feroce rivolta al jet-set hollywoodiano. Il protagonista - un campagnolo di buoni sentimenti e gretta mentalità - ha la fortuna di possedere una bellezza al di sopra del comune, non sufficiente da sola, però, a compensare il pesante accento del sud. Ciò gli darà quindi occasione di incuriosire qualche talent scout senza evitargli impietose bocciature ai provini.
Sbarca il lunario, condividendo l'appartamento con un'aspirante attrice, manda lettere a casa in cui cerca di esaltare i pochi segnali positivi che man mano gli capiteranno per le mani, come un universitario in difficoltà che non riesca a dare esami eppure rassicuri i parenti che la laurea è prossima. Il mondo di Hollywood lo ingoia, spolpa e risputa, non senza prima avergli mostrato il vero funzionamento del sistema: il modo in cui la mediocrità, la sua stessa mediocrità, può comunque avere opportunità di emergere, al prezzo di qualche compromesso. Il tuffo nella realtà di quel cinema è reso ancor più efficace dal continuo richiamo a celebrità dell'epoca (la Stanwyck, DeMille, Cagney...), sembra di vivere dentro quel mondo patinato sotto la cui superficie si muove il marciume e la piccineria dell'animo umano.
McCoy si conferma uno scrittore di talento.

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a sorry effort that only gets modern attention because it's available for 99 cents on Kindle. Prior to e-books, this novel was rightly consigned to the bargain racks of urban used bookstores that smell like cat urine. Horace McCoy is the fiction writer's equivalent of dipping your left hand in the bathtub, shrieking at the prune-like appearance of your fingers, then dipping your right hand in and shrieking even louder. To avoid being an even lamer writer than McCoy, I'll spell out my displeasure - even for his era, the author was a laughably innocent drama queen. McCoy couldn't decide if he wanted to write a sleazy pulp joyride or a sober Roman a clef about nightlife, so he settled on a generic story of corrupted youth narrated in a wincing, joyless voice that made me wish an agonizing death on the hero. Armchair therapists wishing to gawk at the musings of a histrionic nitwit will enjoy this book. Everyone else will want their dollar back. McCoy gets 2 stars because the pacing is quick enough that the reader's suffering only lasts an hour.

[Randy Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Interesting Story About Sad People

Set in Hollywood during the Depression, this novel focuses on two young people who want to be in the movies but can only find work as extras. One is a woman who’s been at it for a while and has gotten cynical and fatalistic, while the other is a naive young man who has been trying to make it only a few months. The woman gains some minor notoriety, which leads to the two of them making some contacts in show business, and that sets the story off on its journey. It’s a short, easy read and probably a pretty accurate picture of certain aspects of Hollywood in the 1930s. I can’t say it’s a fun read. In fact it’s pretty grim at times, though there is some humor in it, and overall I enjoyed it. One note: a key character is from Georgia and has some pretty racist attitudes (and uses the n-word several times), so if that would bother you then you may want to skip this one.

[Kirti · Rating 3 out of 5]

So this book is basically about a person going to Hollywood, even after various efforts he could not get into pictures.
At last he thinks that he should have stayed home.
A good short read.
I think this kind of reality is also important, as people need to know that everything has a dark side as well and this book portrays that well

[Iblena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Retrato realista y sombrío del Hollywood de la gran depresión, un lugar que termina por destruir y corromper a quienes no logran alcanzar la fama y fortuna que la llamada fábrica de los sueños promete. En la misma línea de ¿Acaso no matan a los caballos?, pero sin lograr alcanzar el nivel de excelencia y crudeza de esta.

[Martina Garrido · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow I couldn’t be more fascinated about how this novel genre can talk about the real face of Hollywood. I really like it, and it was a lucky signal to find up this book in a small book shop that sold books under 5 euros. Yes, I highly recommend

[Stephen Rowland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick, easy to read, entertaining. Most definitely shocking for its time. McCoy here has no pretensions to poetry as he did in other novels, and his protagonist is a dimwit and hardly likeable. Yet I really liked the book, the work overall.