Complicit
A Novel
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4.0 • 12 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
“Like the best filmmakers, Li draws you to the edge of your seat and keeps you there.” —The New York Times Book Review
A CRIMEREADS BEST CRIME NOVEL
After a long-buried, harrowing incident, a woman whose promising film career was derailed contemplates revenge in this thriller about power, privilege, and justice “that is compelling, courageous, and brutal in the best possible way” (Liz Nugent, author of Little Cruelties).
A Hollywood has-been, Sarah Lai’s dreams of success behind the camera have turned to ashes. Now a lecturer at an obscure college, this former producer wants nothing more than to forget those youthful ambitions and push aside any feelings of regret…or guilt.
But when a journalist reaches out to her to discuss her own experience working with the celebrated film producer Hugo North, Sarah can no longer keep silent. This is her last chance to tell her side of the story and maybe even exact belated vengeance.
As Sarah recounts the industry’s dark and sordid secrets, however, she begins to realize that she has a few sins of her own to confess. Now she must confront her choices and ask herself, just who was complicit?
Bold and hypnotic, Complicit transports us “into the film industry’s dark and deep-seated culture of rampant sexism and unbridled male ego…and the terrible cost of staying silent. An utterly compelling read” (Liv Constantine, author of The Last Mrs. Parrish).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the uneven latest from Li (Dark Chapter), a film professor looks back with guilt in 2017 on her early producing career and her studio head's sexual misconduct. In flashbacks, Li reveals how Sarah Lai, raised by a Chinese American family in Flushing, N.Y., feels out of her element at Firefly Films in the West Village, where she tries to navigate the "complicated miasma of egos," among them those of up-and-coming writer and director Xander Schulz and studio founder Sylvia Zimmerman. After Firefly debuts Xander's first feature film at Cannes, British billionaire Hugo North backs the company, rebranding Firefly as Conquest. When the shoot for Xander's latest is moved to Los Angeles, Sarah is left in charge as acting producer and must deal with Xander's petulance and Hugo's appetite for beautiful women, drugs, and power. At the center of the production is up-and-coming actor Holly Randolph, now a big star, whose backstory gradually emerges. Li skillfully depicts the ways in which powerful people exploit and abuse those trying to get a foothold in the film industry, though the narrative is at once overlong and underdeveloped, leaving the central theme of complicity underexplored. It ends up being an intriguing if not quite satisfying look at #MeToo in the film industry.
