The Golden West: Hollywood Stories [Hardcover]

Daniel Fuchs; Christopher Carduff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 25, 2005

In the spring of 1937, Brooklyn's Daniel Fuchs, twenty-seven years old and already the author of three remarkable novels, came to Hollywood to bang out a treatment of one of his short stories. His thirteen-week contract turned into a permanent residence -- and a lifelong love affair with the movie business. Fuchs worked with the best: Warner and M-G-M and RKO, Wilder and Huston and Joe Pasternak, Raft and Cagney and Doris Day. He spent his days crafting screenplays, but off the lot he continued to write prose, mainly stories for Collier's and The New Yorker and non-fiction "Letters from Hollywood" for Commentary. The Golden West collects, for the first time, the best of Fuch's writings about studio life, from a novice screenwriter's anxious first impressions (1937-39) to a fifty-year veteran's mellow memoirs. Fuchs may have loved Hollywood, but his affection didn't blind him to the town's Babylon aspect: he saw life as it is, gold and! tinsel both, and described it without falling into easy sentiment or condescending laughter. He was the Chekhov of the back lot, the Bellow of the Brown Derby.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A wonderful volume . . . a very welcome book. -- David Thomson, The New Republic

Fuchs refuses to lose faith that things can be seen, and people's hearts can be known. -- Forward Newspaper, May 26, 2005

Of all the writers who relocated to Hollywood and stuck it out, Daniel Fuchs was perhaps the most talented. -- American Book Review, January/February 2006

Superb. -- Sam Tanenhaus, New York Times Book Review

[These stories] are tours de force of surface description and telling detail. -- Katherine A. Powers, The Boston Sunday Globe

From the Back Cover

PRAISE FOR DANIEL FUCHS

"Nobody else writes like Daniel Fuchs. I think of him as a natural -- a poet who never had to strain after a poetic effect, a magician who made magic look almost too easy." -- John Updike, The New Yorker

"I think of him as a 'true' writer, in the dictionary sense of 'reflecting sincerely one's feelings.' His prose rarely makes any claims on its own behalf. All is at the service of the moment rendered, a bit of fading history. . . . 'The Golden West' is first-rate, worth placing beside Fitzgerald's and West's evocations of the Hollywood frenzy -- that lunatic desperation that keeps these people, their hearts eaten away by success and memory, clinging to the slopes to avoid falling into bankruptcy yet still dreaming that, with a yank here, a twist there, they'll again make a cool million." -- Irving Howe, The New York Review of Books

"Fuchs knows the facts of Hollywood, but his interest is in the demons beneath. The action of 'West of the Rockies' is seen throughout as a sort of sad trance: Fuchs studies the details, then changes the focus so that the facts become figurative. He has a humane gift -- not facile compassion but the ability to put the ephemeral into phrases that, paradoxically, fix their ephemeralness. The lovely phrases, the sharp precepts, are almost like reminders to him and to us that this is not just more Hollywood fiction, this is serious." -- Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic

"Sympathy is a dominant note in Fuch's writing. He has a keen eye, an excellent ear for the speech of his characters, for the human animal. . . . I know of few novelists in America today who possess Fuchs's natural talent and energy or his sense of life." -- James T. Farrell, The Nation

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Black Sparrow Press; First Edition edition (May 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1574232053
• ISBN-13: 978-1574232059
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,896,589 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An intriguing presentation by an industry insider, November 9, 2005

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Golden West: Hollywood Stories (Hardcover)

John Updike provides the introduction to The Golden West: Hollywood Stories, a blend of autobiography and an account of writing for the movies. It was 1937 when nearly-thirty author Fuchs came to Hollywood to provide a play of one of his novels - a contract which would introduce him to a magical city in which he was to spend the rest of his life. Fuchs worked with some of Hollywood's best writers and actors, producing screenplays and prose: The Golden West gathers his writings about his movie business encounters from 1937-39 and again in 1989, making for an intriguing presentation by an industry insider.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars silver screen in the golden west, August 26, 2008

By 

Jessie Tromberg (irvine, ca.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Golden West: Hollywood Stories (Hardcover)

Anyone interested in "the old days of Hollywood" is sure to enjoy the book. Even the language feels different from today.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, December 19, 2009

By 

F. noyes "f noyes bookworm" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Golden West: Hollywood Stories (Hardcover)

I'm actually providing this review before completing this read, but I'm far enough into it to have a pretty good impression. While Fuch's writing is ok, I think the anonymous style storytelling gets old quickly. This would have been a good one to go back, say 20 years later, and fill in the names. Fact is, what I've read so far is not that revealing that would have raised that many eyebrows.