Monster: Living Off the Big Screen

One of the rare screenwriters who also manages to maintain a distinguished career as a novelist and journalist now bites the hand that feeds him in this sardonically funny expose of life on the Hollywood food chain. A savvy, acidly funny book that is must-reading on the subject of consensus Hollywood movie-making.--The New York Times. nIn Hollywood, screenwriters are a curse to be borne, and beating up on them is an industry blood sport. But in this ferociously funny and accurate account of life on the Hollywood food chain, it's a screenwriter who gets the last murderous laugh. That may be because the writer is John Gregory Dunne, who has written screenplays, along with novels and non-fiction, for thirty years. In 1988 Dunne and his wife, Joan Didion, were asked to write a screenplay about the dark and complicated life of the late TV anchorwoman Jessica Savitch. Eight years and twenty-seven drafts later, this script was made into the fairy tale Up Close and Personal starring Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer. Detailing the meetings, rewrites, fights, firings, and distractions attendant to the making of a single picture, Monster illuminates the process with sagacity and raucous wit.