The Sunset Crowd
A Novel
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3.5 • 30 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
"Irresistible, deft, sparkling…The Sunset Crowd is cool sans hangover, which makes it a perfect addition to your summer luggage." ––The Washington Post
"Super juicy." ––Rolling Stone
Fame. Fortune. Love. You can't have them all.
Meet LA darling Evra Scott. The daughter of an Oscar-winning director and a Brazilian bombshell actress, Evra is the city’s reigning style queen. By day, she’s at the helm of Sunset on Sunset, the boutique beloved by Hollywood’s young and beautiful. By night, she’s on the arm of Kai de la Faire, Hawaii’s hottest export, and the screenwriter of the moment.
Enter Theodora Leigh. The twenty-something Paramount Pictures assistant looks like a big screen star, but her sights are firmly set behind the scenes, as she fights to become a movie producer in a town where sex and sexism sell. Theodora’s got the talent and instincts, but she’s not willing to wait. Luckily, getting ahead by any means necessary is LA’s mantra.
Observing it all is Bea Dupont, a photographer for Rolling Stone and Vogue, who never misses the party, but always keeps to its fringes. A Manhattan blue blood turned West Coast bohemian, Bea holds Evra’s Sunset crowd together. She’s also Kai’s oldest friend, and she’s harbored a not-so-secret flame for him since they met at an elite Swiss boarding school.
But in Hollywood, no one stays on top forever. And it’s not long before Theodora’s unrelenting ambition sets in motion a dramatic quest for power in an industry that is as glamorous as it is duplicitous.
From Rodeo Drive to the French Riviera, Karin Tanabe's The Sunset Crowd is a tale of survival and reinvention, of faking it until you make it, and the glittering appeal of success and stardom, as it seeks to answer that timeless question―who gets to have the American dream?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the canny latest from Tanabe (A Hundred Suns), a woman navigates love and friendship in cutthroat 1970s Hollywood. Narrator Beatrice Dupont befriends Hawaiian native Kai de la Faire, whom she describes as "a beautiful man with a big personality," at a Swiss boarding school. Now, in her 20s and working as a photographer in Los Angeles for Vogue and Rolling Stone, Bea reconnects with Kai and meets his girlfriend, Evra Scott. A member of Hollywood's royalty thanks to her actor mother and director father, Evra has eschewed the spotlight and instead opened a trend-setting clothing boutique. As Kai finds success with a screenplay and Evra's star continues to rise, Bea plays the third wheel while pining for Kai ("I knew I couldn't compete, but I could wait"). When Theodora Leigh, an attractive assistant at Paramount, shows up at Evra's shop, she captures everyone's attention, including Kai's. Theodora is not shy about her determination to become a producer, but as she snakes her way into the trio's mix, drama ensues, and Bea wonders if Theodora might have ulterior motives. Tanabe paints Bea as a strong leading lady who understands the pitfalls of Los Angeles ("It's all one big con"), and she makes the characters deliciously complicated over the course of their ever-shifting allegiances. Readers will delight in this sunburst of '70s nostalgia.
