Hollywood (Magill Book Reviews)

At a glance:

Those who would aspire to write historical fiction have not an easy task. Admittedly, history is often more bizarre than fiction, but it is also so much a matter of interpretation. A hero to one generation becomes a villain to the next. Crimes and peccadilloes unsuspected during an individual’s lifetime are revealed to later generations.

While there are no earthshaking revelations in the latest volume in Vidal’s American chronicle, HOLLYWOOD does present a Woodrow Wilson who is more human and, it must be admitted, malevolent and lusty than the prim figure known to most readers. In fact, the only historical personage who moves through the pages of HOLLYWOOD with his virtue intact is Senator Thomas Gore of Oklahoma. Even the acerbic Vidal shrank from subjecting his grandfather and namesake to the scrutiny that he mercilessly applies to such lesser beings as Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

As usual, Vidal deftly mixes fact and fiction. Here his principal fictional creation is Caroline Sanford, an ambitious young woman who also figured as one of the leading characters in EMPIRE, the previous volume in the saga. In HOLLYWOOD, she goes West to become a film star under the name Emma Traxler, featured in HUNS FROM HELL and other “pro-American, pro-Allies photo-plays.” Vidal’s clear implication is that, especially where political matters are concerned, American have long been disposed to confuse appearance with reality.

Sources for Further Study

Booklist. LXXXVI, November 15, 1989, p.619.

Chicago Tribune. January 28, 1990, XIV, p.1.

London Review of Books. XI, November 23, 1989, p.24.

Los Angeles Times Book Review. February 18, 1990, p.4.

Maclean’s. CIII, March 5, 1990, p.63.

New Statesman and Society. II, November 3’ 1989, p.35.

The New York Review of Books. XXXVII, March 29, 1990, p.20.

The New York Times Book Review. XCV, January 21, 1990, p.1.

Publishers Weekly. CCXXXVI, December 15, 1989, p.56.

The Times Literary Supplement. November 10, 1989, p.1243.

Vogue. CLXXX, February, 1990, p.212.

The Washington Post Book World. XX, January 14, 1990, p.1.