Beautiful Wasps Having Sex: A Hollywood Novel - Softcover

Carter, Dori

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060935006 ISBN 13: 9780060935009

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2001

Synopsis

Meet Frankie Jordan, a screenwriter living a rather perilous life in the wilds of Hollywood. She's turning forty, her husband wants a divorce, and all she can think about is the script she can't finish. Enter Jonathan Prince, a confident, seductive twenty-four-year-old agent-in-training.  In a town that takes glee in the failure of others, Jonathan's the only one who seems to recognize Frankie's brilliance. So begins the tragic comedy that consumes Frankie's life. The lunacy of trying to sell her script is described in harrowing detail. But it's when her script finally does sell that the real nightmare begins. Longing to discover why Hollywood attracts and rewards so many "little monsters," she's compelled to confront how Jews feel about themselves in a town that both loves and hates its own invention -- the beautiful WASP.

About this title

About the Author:

A former screenwriter and television producer, Dori Carter lives with her husband in Santa Barbara, California.

From Publishers Weekly:

This low-key Hollywood version of All About Eve (without the multiple points of view) portrays the rise to power of Jonathan Prince, as narrated by 39-year-old screenwriter Frankie Jordan. Riffing on Jewish Hollywood's WASP envyAWASPs as role models, WASPs as ideal on-screen characters, WASPs as an alien raceAauthor and ex-screenwriter Carter pieces together an amusing, if occasionally wearing and sour, satire. Frankie (n?e Francine Fingerman) first meets Jonathan in 1989; he's the new secretary for her agent, Freyda Wong. Separated from screenwriter husband and ur-WASP Hart, Frankie latches onto Jonathan, a 24-year-old social climber and aggressively secular Jew, as a friendly voice in an otherwise hostile worldAor presumably because in Hollywood, any human connection (even a possibly faked one) is better than loneliness. Herschel, a struggling middle-aged screenwriter, and his bubbly wife, Miriam, are good friends in need, too, and they rent Frankie a small house in their backyard. When Frankie finally sells her screenplayAthe 40-year chronicle of a woman named Ivy and her gay cousin ArthurAit seems things are looking up. The Jewish producers hire her to do a rewrite, mainly to tone down the Jewish ethnicity of the script, and Jonathan signs on as Frankie's secretary. Before Frankie's very eyes, however, Jonathan undergoes an unpleasant transformation, working, cajoling and maneuvering his way to power and status. The culmination of his efforts as a junior mover and shaker is a glossily tasteful Christmas (not Hanukkah) party he hosts at his apartment. Carter leaches her tale of suspense by having Frankie admit up front and in retrospect that she is only a minor story writer, but the details of day-to-day, dog-eat-dog life in lower-echelon Hollywood carry the tale. Still, when Frankie says about Jonathan, "I wonder how I ever could have liked him," readers will likely agree. Major ad/promo, regional author appearances. (July)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0060935006
• ISBN 13: 9780060935009
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336