Blacklisting Myself details Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Roger L. Simon's odyssey from financier of the Black Panther Breakfast Program to darling of the political right. In this tale of Hollywood radical chic run amuck, Simon relates his adventures with Richard Pryor, Warren Beatty, Woody Allen and real-life Hollywood KGB officers. Among the topics covered along the way: the new blacklist for conservatives in tinseltown and how new media will destroy Hollywood as we know it.
Turning Right at Hollywood and Vine
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle.
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
Review
Years ago, I read Roger L. Simon's first mystery novel, The Big Fix, and I was delighted. Roger was a left liberal then and so was I. Now Roger's politics and mine have changed, but his gifts as a writer have only grown richer. Blacklisting Myself is a story of Hollywood and America, funny and perceptive at the same time. --Michael Barone, US News & World Report, American Enterprise Institute
Review
Rueful, thoughtful, refreshingly direct, and full of juicy inside stories, Roger L. Simon's memoir is the best and most intimate account of Hollywood's politics yet published.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
66 of 76 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gulag,
By
This review is from: Blacklisting Myself: Memoir of a Hollywood Apostate in the Age of Terror (Hardcover)
If you, as I, are fascinated by how people begin the slow, often painful process of authentic life change after centering their lives on radical political and cultural positions we thought would never end--or we thought would end in some utopian fantasy world--then you won't want to miss Roger Simon's recently released "Blacklisting Myself."Smart, clever, sophisticated, funny and radically honest, Roger has filled his book with recollections and vignettes from the wild and crazy days of the 60s and 70s when drugs, sex and rock and roll flowed freely over the land but turned out, as we all know, were not really free at all. Going back with Roger as an erstwhile radical left screen/mystery writer residing in Hollywood after graduating from Dartmouth is an edifying and intersting trip. It's a long, long way from wanting to be "lionized as Fellini and idolized as Che" to being the current CEO of the conservative internet site known as Pajamas Media and sending Joe the Plumber to Gaza on a reporting assignment for PJTV recently. Sure, he meant all his silly, lefty ideologies at the time, but a funny thing happened on the way to actualizing his radial fantasies: he began to re-examine his deeply held beliefs amidst a fascinating body of life experiences, and almost against his will started moving right: Though he'd rubbed elbows with Timothy Leary in a crackhouse, turned down a dinner engagement and business opportunities with Warren Beaty, had a flat tire in South Carolina while fomenting dissent during desegregation, spent time in both Communist China, Russia and Cuba, married three wives, was divorced from two and honed his skills as a mystery writer centered around his Moses Wine books, nothing could have prepared him, nor permanently kept him in his leftist myopia on that fateful day he sat in the courtroom watching the sensational O.J Simpson murder trail unfold. It was there in the circus atmosphere of the greatest miscarriage of justice the world has ever watched live on TV that a whole new set of lights started to come on in Roger's head. Granted, only dimly at first, but the good news is they kept getting brighter as time has gone on. How a man like Simon---who for decades had lived, breathed and had his being on the left fringe of politics and pop culture as the likes of Ward Churchill and Bill Ayers did and sadly still do---stopped, stared and slowly started changing direction and going right is a great read. Indeed, with the kind of change you'll read about in this book, I can only wonder what's in store for Roger, in the words of Tim McGraw, "in his next thirty years." Will he end up writng screen plays about William Buckley? Try too oust Arnold as governor? Become an evangelical minister? (Ha! couldn't resist!) Who knows? Read this book, and stay tuned for the rest of the story. If Roger can change from where he came from, then there's still hope for my left-leaning Obama-loving adult children. In fact, think I'll buy them each a copy just in case they're interested in reading how Roger Simon made a U-turn, and in Hollywood no less. Why four stars instead of five? For one reason only: So he'll have something to strive for in his next thirty years! (On the Web, I write as Webutante.)
48 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Couldn't Put It Down,
By S. K. Chartwell (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Blacklisting Myself: Memoir of a Hollywood Apostate in the Age of Terror (Hardcover)
I was expecting to like this book, as I've long been a fan of both Roger Simon's detective fiction and his incisive political/cultural blog. But I was nevertheless surprised at what a terrific read this book proved to be, from start to finish. It's a great memoir of life inside the belly of the movie business, told with the grace, humor, and bite (and telltale stories!) that one would expect from a first-rate writer. But more than that, this is a compelling account of one man's struggle with the dueling angels of liberal political orthodoxy and common sense. It's still on my bedside table; I re-read it every night. I hope that, as a true child of Hollywood, Simon is already at work on the sequel.
51 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Simon's walk through familier history has a refreshing take,
By
This review is from: Blacklisting Myself: Memoir of a Hollywood Apostate in the Age of Terror (Hardcover)
Roger L. Simon's writing is not only a refreshing look-back at the politics that informed the Sixties-era Hollywood film industry, but also the direction of American pop culture post-Vietnam and Watergate. His breezy, often humorous style walks us through his interactions with figures as diverse as Barbara Streisand, Woody Allen, Warren Beatty and Richard Pryor to Abbie Hoffman, Black Panther leader Elaine brown and Timothy Leary. As a former Marxist theoretician-turned-political conservative, I especially appreciate Simon's thoughtful description of his own re-evaluation of his left leanings that eventually shifted significantly to the right. Smart, funny, insightful ... "Blacklisting Myself" is a delight. > Joe R.Hicks
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Inside This Book
(learn more)
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
