Half Past the Dead of Night

Thirty-seven-year-old script supervisor Jared Dunkin, called J., is camping in the corner of his inherited house above Hollywood’s Sunset Strip. In his move, he brought only his autograph collection and his Barcelona chairs. Orphaned and disconsolate, J. is doing nothing with his love of film and very little with his history degree.

Out of the blue, he meets thirty-year-old Mary Ellen Higgen—called Emmy—while at a voting precinct on a February Tuesday and decides she might be the girl for him. But when he raves to his grandmother about Emmy, she warns him not to see the girl again—although she doesn’t say why.

Everyone in Hollywood has a personal celebrity. For J., it’s his grandmother, who came to Hollywood in the late forties as Ms. South Dakota and third runner-up to Ms. America. She made movies and married the head of makeup as he started the successful line of Ingénue Cosmetics. Emmy’s celebrity is her late, swashbuckling movie star grandfather who had made a film with J.’s grandstar. Although they’re in love, J. and Emmy may have too much in common. Just as he finds a career, J. finds his personal life spiraling out of control in a spectacular fashion worthy of a soap opera.