Last Night at Chateau Marmont: A Novel [Hardcover]

Lauren Weisberger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 17, 2010

Brooke loved reading the dishy celebrity gossip rag Last Night. That is, until her marriage became a weekly headline.Brooke was drawn to the soulful, enigmatic Julian Alter the very first time she heard him perform “Hallelujah” at a dark East Village dive bar.Now five years married, Brooke balances two jobs—as a nutritionist at NYU Hospital and as a consultant to an Upper East Side girls’ school, where privilege gone wrong and disordered eating run rampant—in order to help support her husband’s dream of making it in the music world.Things are looking up when after years of playing Manhattan clubs and toiling as an A&R intern, Julian finally gets signed by Sony. Although no one’s promising that the album will ever hit the airwaves, Julian is still dedicated to logging in long hours at the recording studio. All that changes after Julian is asked to perform on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno—and is catapulted to stardom, literally overnight. Amazing opportunities begin popping up almost daily—a new designer wardrobe, a tour with Maroon 5, even a Grammy performance.At first the newfound fame is fun—who wouldn’t want to stay at the Chateau Marmont or visit the set of one of television’s hottest shows? Yet it seems that Brooke’s sweet husband—the man who can’t handle hot showers and wears socks to bed—is increasingly absent, even on those rare nights they’re home together. When rumors about Brooke and Julian swirl in the tabloid magazines, she begins to question the truth of her marriage and is forced to finally come to terms with what she thinks she wants—and what she actually needs.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Brooke and Julian Alter are a happy couple--she's a nutritionist working two jobs to support them, he's a talented musician with a low-level recording contract--but when Julian hits it big in The Devil Wears Prada author Weisberger's not-ready-for-prime-time latest, their marriage wobbles under the strain of fame. Suddenly Julian is traveling nonstop, a pawn of his manager and publicist, and Brooke tries to balance her career with her desire to back him up. Paparazzi stalk their every move (believable in his case, less so in hers); her job is threatened by her repeated absences to attend events like Julian's Grammy appearance; and their shared giddiness dissipates as they are divided--physically and emotionally--as a couple. It takes many dozens of pages and a number of by-the-way announcements that might have ratcheted up the tension if they'd been part of the story to get Brooke and Julian into a crisis, unsurprising though that crisis may be. Weisberger has insightful takes about the price of success in our celebrity-obsessed culture, but Brooke and Julian hew too closely to type to make their struggles sympathetic.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In her fourth novel, the incisive, trend-focused author of The Devil Wears Prada (2003) explores the effect of fame on a young married couple. When Brooke first comes across singer Julian in a dive in Manhattan, she’s entranced by his voice. She starts to attend his weekly shows until a mediocre blind date leads to an unexpected meeting. It isn’t long before the two fall in love and marry. Brooke, a nutritionist with aspirations of starting her own company, works two jobs to support Julian’s musical ambitions, which pays off when he lands a recording contract. The record label sets up a showcase just before the album’s release, and Julian’s performance attracts the attention of a scout for Jay Leno, who invites Julian to play on his show. That performance turns Julian into an overnight sensation, but both he and Brooke find themselves wholly unprepared for superstardom, which includes stalking paparazzi, tabloid smear articles, and flirtatious fame seekers. An absorbing, thoroughly entertaining read about the ins and outs and ups and downs of life as a celebrity. --Kristine Huntley

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Atria Books; 1st edition (August 17, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1439136610
• ISBN-13: 978-1439136614
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (82 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #184,007 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lauren Weisberger is the author of The Devil Wears Prada, which spent more than a year on the New York Times hardcover and paperback bestseller lists. The film version, starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway, won a Golden Globe Award and grossed over $300 million worldwide. Her second novel, Everyone Worth Knowing, was also a New York Times bestseller. She lives in New York City with her husband.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If you enjoyed "Devil Wears Prada", I think you'll like this one, August 22, 2010

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Holly Kincaid "Book addict" (Indiana, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Last Night at Chateau Marmont: A Novel (Hardcover)

My experience with this particular author is that I read "The Devil Wears Prada" quite a while ago and loved it from beginning to end. "Everyone Worth Knowing" felt like a retread to me and the enjoyment level dipped. The reviews were so negative about "Chasing Harry Winston" that I didn't even borrow it from the library. I am not sure what inspired me to pick this novel up, but I think I was in the frame of mind where I was looking for another TDWP-type book, so I went back to the source.

Brooke and Julian and are a Manhattan couple who dated for two years and have been married for five. She is a nutritionist working two jobs (totally 60 hours a week, minimum) to support the dreams of her talented, musician husband. When Sony comes to him with a recording contract and his career begins to take off (or maybe a better word would be skyrocket), the stresses and strains on the relationship quickly become apparent. Brooke has worked long and hard to develop her career and is trying to juggle the life she has created with the new reality of a husband who is never home, never knows where he is going to be, and becomes the center of a "machine" which makes him into a product to sell rather than the husband she loves.

The story really centers around Brooke and it is her skin we are living in. Julian is more absent than present through much of the story and we really only know what he is thinking and feeling by his conversations with Brooke. While much of the turmoil may have been able to be anticipated, the reality is much more intense and everything happens to quickly that they really don't have time to prepare. Co-workers, friends and family surround them and some are incredibly supportive and some continue the same patterns of self-absorption they have exhibited their whole lives (I pretty much wanted to smack Julian's mom throughout the novel).

Snappy dialogue, detailed descriptions of fabulous clothes, rich and famous people, and a peek into the lifestyles of the (newly) famous. A book that I finished in 24 hours since I couldn't put it down and had to find out what happened. The ending could have gone a couple of different ways and it wasn't until I got there that I knew for sure what the result would be.

Fun, fast, witty - I may have to go back and try "Chasing Harry Winston" after this.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Little Too Fluffy, August 29, 2010

By 

Whatsername - See all my reviews

This review is from: Last Night at Chateau Marmont: A Novel (Hardcover)

Basic premise is: Lounge singer husband of ordinary young married NY couple (Julian and Brooke) gets discovered and goes big time; couple struggles with sudden fame and loss of ordinary status quo and the imbalance between his changing idea of lifetyle/career/relationship and her expectation that they should remain "normal."

Although I knew going in that this book was going to be a pretty light read, I still found some of the plot lines a little too much to swallow. Brooke blithely sends Julian off to become a major rock star while she putters around their NY apartment with the dog. Brooke nags Julian endlessly about how he's never home any more but then refuses to quit either of her part-time jobs when he asks her to in order for them to spend more time together. Brooke agonizes incessantly about Julian being around beautiful sexy young women, but makes excuses for her own weight gain and never seems willing to wear anything but sweat suits. Brooke pouts that Julian never takes her anywhere and then is miserable when she is expected to attend any of his entertainment-world social functions. By the last hundred pages, I just wanted the whining to end and didn't really care whether or not the marriage could or would be saved.

Not a total waste of time, but keep your expectations low.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I really wanted to like it..., March 29, 2011

By 

Shidoe (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Last Night At Chateau Marmont (Kindle Edition)

Here is a quick rundown of what's wrong with this book:

1 .The writing is corny and simplistic. The editing was lacking too, as mentioned before there was an obvious error with the time difference between the east and west coast. I noticed it right away and I am not even from the United States.

2. Brooke is unlikeable. For years she works 2 jobs to support Julian. To our understanding she does so until he makes it because they need the money. So why is she complaining when he asks her to take a break? Isn't that what she was expecting? She complains that she never sees him anymore, well she married a musician, what did she think was going to happen? And what's wrong with taking a break and following your husband around? Why is he the one having to make sacrifices to see her? And seriously, who wouldn't say yes to taking a break from work to accompany their husband in glamorous locations around the world.

3. Because it's hard to like her, the author throws a semi cheating plot towards the end of the book to give readers an opportunity to really feel sorry for her. But then she avoids confrontation and decides to complain a lot more without even looking at the incriminating photos first. What??

4. The Nola character: it's hard to understand why Nola is such a loyal friend to Brooke. Brooke doesn't bring anything to their friendship except complains about her situation: even worse, a situation she is aware Nola is jealous of. Their friendship is not realistic and brings absolutely nothing to the book.

5. All of the characters lack depth. Give more relatable background information on your characters and people will like them. The author gives background information which has nothing to do with the present plot. It's like the author knows she should do that but doesn't know how to do it.

6. The over the top name dropping throughout the book made me cringe.

7. I got the impression the author didn't do any research on the sudden fame experience but rather just wrote what she imagined it to be

8. The book is boring. The interesting plot is Julian's experience of sudden fame however, the book only follows Brooke who stays behind.

9. By the end of it you don't care about finishing the book.

If you want a good book on the same subject, I strongly recommend `The year of living famously' by Laura Caldwell, a much more realistic and likeable story.