On Spec: A Novel of Young Hollywood [Hardcover]

Richard Rushfield (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2000

A brilliant, dead-on debut about what it takes to make it in today's Hollywood. On Spec follows the paths of six Hollywood hopefuls--a screenwriter, an agent, a development girl, an actress, a studio chef, and an aspiring producer--as they experience the pitfalls and payouts of life on the hollwood fast track. More than just a novel about the entertainment industry, On Spec is a parody of modern life, where winner takes all and the losers are tossed to the wayside without a second thought.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Young film industry up-and-comers tell their own damning story of behind-the-scenes narcissism in this caustic satire of millennial Hollywood. The professional fates of five Tinseltown characters are tied together by a spec script called Kennel Break. The script is originally conceived as a gritty tale of two smalltime hoods breaking a girlfriend's Rottweiler out of the pound, but is eventually reworked as, alternately, a high-budget thriller of international jewel thieves, a women's issues vehicle and a summer release for kids featuring a pet dinosaur. Predictably, it ends up as an uneasy mixture of all the above. Stu Bluminvitz, an aspiring screenwriter who lives with his parents, has big dreams for his project and future, but has a lot to learn about the role of writers in Hollywood--specifically, that they're at the bottom of the food chain. Stu puts his fate in the hands of several flashy, ambitious wannabes, who are all as giddily drunk on the dream as he is. The players include aspiring producer Eric Whitfield, a talented party host who knows how to find the best cigars, drugs and lap-dancers; aspiring super-agent Todd Hirtley, a paranoid master of image control; aspiring studio executive Deana Cohen, who vows never to forget the little people; and aspiring actress Chelsea Starlot, a sexy Midwestern transplant who teeters between cocaine-induced mania and Scientological serenity. First-time novelist Rushfield fashions a candid, colloquial and at times dizzily paced narrative out of memos, notes on computers and Dictaphones and jotted down in journals, snippets from a magazine article and a police blotter, and other fragments. A writer for Vanity Fair and Details, Rushfield employs a scathing cynicism that spares no one, and while his swift and humorous trip behind the Hollywood facade may not be shocking, it's certainly entertaining. (Mar.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The Alice-in-Wonderland world of Hollywood is dissected with sardonic wit in Rushfield's delightful first novel. The tale takes the form of a series of journal entries written by the people responsible for making a truly terrible movie. Stu Bluminvitz, a talent-free screenwriter who lives in his parents' basement, has concocted a dreadful script that ends up in the hands of a high-powered agent-producer and a studio head who are each in desperate need of a hit. As his script is changed beyond recognition, Stu is pushed into the background and finally thrown off the studio grounds when he's mistaken for a stalker. Meanwhile, a starlet sleeps her way into the movie and drives everyone crazy with her cocaine and her New Age paranoia. The characters are etched in acid: no one is trustworthy, everyone is looking for an angle, and when the movie justifiably bombs, tails are covered with alacrity. Rushfield's debut won't make anyone forget The Day of the Locust, but it provides solid entertainment. George Needham

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (April 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312242263
• ISBN-13: 978-0312242268
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,946,102 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing read, May 13, 2000

By 

Joelle Amiee Ostrich (Lebanon, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: On Spec: A Novel of Young Hollywood (Hardcover)

Extremely well-written, engaging and inescapably funny, the final resolution ties together a plot that is fufilling and rewarding. Even for someone who lives in the Beltway and could care less for the intricate details of mass-produced culture, this book was a great introduction to just how non-meritorious the entertainment biz seems to be.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars green light, July 9, 2000

By 

bill katovsky (san francisco, california USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: On Spec: A Novel of Young Hollywood (Hardcover)

this is hollywood high-concept at its most obscene. less a novel than a pasting together of journal entries by stock characters who include a screenwriter, agent, producer, studio head, actress, and "d-girl," on spec soars on the wings of the author's gift of mimicry and dialogue. it was pitch perfect, in my estimation; he got the psychotic and neurotic, the egotistical and shameless comings and goings of players within the movie business realm in ways that should make any screenwriter cringe in envy. the passages are hilarious and brilliant, and quite credible. what doesn't work in the end is the plot; to state his satirical case, the author keeps upping the ante until mild satire becomes outright slapstick. but perhaps he needed to make a point that is all too obvious--how else to explain an industry that will spend a hundred million dollars for a remake of "the flintstones" or "the adventures of rocky and bullwinkle." any industry that takes itself so seriously and yet continues to deceive itself by foisting onto the public works of utter garbage, almost defies being satirized. this book though belongs on the same shelf as the player, the day of the locusts, and the pat hobby stories by fitzgerald.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Fun Read in 2001, Fun Now . . . But Not As Much, December 30, 2004

By 

Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: On Spec: A Novel of Young Hollywood (Paperback)

ON SPEC is a novel very much of its time and place. It had the misfortune of being released at a time when the US reading public wasn't in the mood for acidly funny satires of Hollywood development hell, not that most people care about that kind of thing anyhow, despite the recent book OPEN SEASON which purports to theorize that Joe Average knows about big box office. But Rushfield is a warm, compassionate writer with a knack for creating humorous characters, a kind of Max Shulman of the 1990s, and his book should have done better. Hell, even KENNEL BREAK wound up sounding like a good feature film. Its writer, Stu Bluminvitz, gets treated terribly by everyone around him (except his Mom and Dad) and yet, like Candide, he just doesn't seem to notice.

It's a book which makes you wonder--why write at all? ON SPEC was advertised as being like Bridget Jones' Diary, but the truth is, it is more like a Terry Southern novel than anything written in the past thirty years. Some have evinced the novels of Bruce Wagner, but Wagner is playing in a different ballpark altogether. It is to Rushfield we turn to when we want to find how things were done under the desks of Hollywood bigwigs in the decadent days before 9/11.