The lives of Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles are reimagined in Big Red, an upcoming novel by acclaimed writer Jerome Charyn.
In this Publishers Weekly Summer Reads Selection, Charyn reimagines the life of one of Hollywood’s most celebrated icons. He channels the ghosts of a buried past, and lifts the veils that have long enshrouded Hayworth, evoking her emotional complexity, passions, pain and inner turmoil.
Charyn’s reimagining of Hayworth’s story begins in 1943, in a roomette at the Hollywood Hotel, where narrator Rusty Redburn―an impetuous, second-string gossip columnist from Kalamazoo, Michigan―bides her time between working as a gofer in the publicity offices of Columbia Pictures, volunteering at an indie movie house, and pursuing dalliances with young women on the Sunset Strip. Called upon by the manipulative Columbia movie boss Harry Cohn to spy on Hayworth. Rusty becomes Rita’s confidante, accompanying her on a series of madcap adventures with her indomitable husband, Orson Welles.
Big Red has been described as a bittersweet paean to Hollywood’s Golden Age, a tender yet honest portrait of a time before blockbusters and film franchises―one that promises to consume both Hollywood cinephiles and neophytes alike.
Publishers Weekly is calling Big Red an “affecting and searing portrait of Silver Screen superstars…. Charyn offers rapid-fire dialogue and slapstick action (“So it’s a bit of blackmail,” Orson says at one point, “lunging” at an adversary though he “wasn’t much of a gladiator with his big flat feet”) along with affecting character development. It’s a rewarding paean to some of cinema’s greats.”
With nearly 50 published works to his credit, Charyn has been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction; awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in Fiction; received the Rosenthal Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; and has been named Commander of Arts and Letter (Ordre des Arts et des Lettres) by the French Minister of Culture.
Big Red hits shelves on August 23 from publisher Liveright.
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