Do Tell
A Novel
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A scintillating debut novel that brings the golden age of Hollywood to glittering life, from star-studded opening nights to backlot brawls, on-location Westerns to the Hollywood Canteen. Through character actress turned gossip columnist Edie O'Dare's eyes, Lindsay Lynch draws back the curtain on classic Hollywood’s secrets.
"Glamorous, tawdry, and human. A rich portrait of the lives of early Hollywood's beautiful puppets and those holding their strings.” –Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author of This Time Tomorrow • “Do Tell illuminates issues of fame and notoriety as relevant now as they were almost a century ago.” –Geraldine Brooks, New York Times bestselling author of Horse
As character actress Edie O'Dare finishes the final year of her contract with FWM Studios, the clock is ticking for her to find a new gig after an undistinguished stint in the pictures. She's long supplemented her income moonlighting for Hollywood's reigning gossip columnist, providing her with the salacious details of every party and premiere. When an up-and-coming starlet hands her a letter alleging an assault from an A-list actor at a party with Edie and the rest of the industry’s biggest names in attendance, Edie helps get the story into print and sets off a chain of events that will alter the trajectories of everyone involved.
Now on a new side of the entertainment business, Edie’s second act career grants her more control on the page than she ever commanded in front of the camera. But Edie quickly learns that publishing the secrets of those former colleagues she considers friends has repercussions. And when she finds herself in the middle of the trial of the decade, Edie is forced to make an impossible choice with the potential to ruin more than one life. Full of sharp observation and crackling wit, debut novelist Lindsay Lynch maps the intricate networks of power that manufacture the magic of the movies and interrogates who actually gets to tell women's stories.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Secrets equal power in Lindsay Lynch’s tantalizing debut about an aspiring actress turned gossip columnist. It’s 1939, and Edie O’Dare’s studio contract is set to expire, but when a sexual-assault scandal involving her co-stars makes headlines, she jumps on the opportunity to leverage her Hollywood connections into a new career. Lynch escorts us to champagne-soaked parties and charged film sets; much of the fun of Do Tell is that the movies and their stars are mostly fictional but the paranoia and transgressions of the period feel very real. We were eager to follow Edie down this fraught new path and see who she decides to protect and who she’s willing to betray. In the end, her choices catch everyone by surprise—including us.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lynch debuts with an intelligent story of Hollywood's Golden Age involving domineering studios, powerful stars, and a second-tier actor turned gossip columnist. With Edie O'Dare's contract at FWM Studios about to expire, she determines to make the most of her bit-part roles and invitations to lavish parties. At one such gathering, she meets 16-year-old rising starlet Sophie Melrose, who tells Edie she was raped by top-billed actor Freddy Clarke. After Edie helps Sophie publish her account in a tabloid newspaper in exchange for a fee, Freddy faces criminal charges, resulting in a highly publicized trial. Edie then starts writing a column for the Los Angeles Times, where she exploits her old friendships with stars like Charles Landrieu by spilling about their love lives. As tensions flare in Tinseltown, fueled in part by Edie's columns, her relationships with Charles and others grow strained, and she begins to realize the price she paid for her success. Though the pacing tends to drag, the dialogue and Edie's narration are steeped in the rapid-fire rhythm of the era's films, making for a convincing portrayal of the world they emerged from. Lovers of the silver screen will be drawn to this.
Customer Reviews
Bore
So many words with so little to say. No excitement or intrigue ANYWHERE. If it had been a book instead of my iPad I would’ve thrown it across the room within the first 30 pages