Secret Celebrity by Carol Wolper New HB Cigarette Girl

Secret Celebrity by Carol Wolper New Hardback Author of The Cigarette Girl

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From Publishers Weekly
Although not technically a sequel to Cigarette Girl, Wolper's second novel reads like part two of her treatise on the cult of celebrity. Struggling filmmaker Christine Chase is the protagonist, rather than Cigarette's screenwriter, Elizabeth West (who makes a cameo appearance), but their personalities, attitudes and voices are identical. Sexy yet hard-boiled Christine is "an L.A. thirty-five"-meaning not quite adult by typical standards-who's stuck in a rut after the dissolution of her six-year marriage. She spends a lot of time at the newsstand buying tabloids from William the "Magazine Guy" as they gossip about the famous one minute and vilify Hollywood for its shallowness the next. Herein lies the crux of the novel: its characters' schizophrenic love-hate relationship with the glitzy world they inhabit. Christine's idol is Richard Gault, a reclusive musician/philosopher/actor/rebel who never sold out. He shunned the limelight after a touch of fame in the 1970s, before mainstream success could spoil him. Christine is inspired to find him and to document her quest for HBO, so like a Hunter S. Thompson in Gucci stilettos, she begins the search. Getting to Gault proves to be more difficult than Christine had expected, provoking theplaintive introspection, "was I just another Hollywood dreamer hustling a bad idea?" Writing in coolly conversational staccato prose that reads like a collaboration between Jackie Collins and Mickey Spillane, Wolper provides Christine with many theories and maxims, which fluctuate between refreshing and pretentious. The narrative features plenty of tough talk, references to licit and illicit drugs, and unapologetic sex. For readers expecting too much, the novel will seem, in Christine's words "as unfulfilling as a fake orgasm," but others will enjoy it as a quintessential beach read.
Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Cigarette Girl Wolper revisits Hollywood with this story of a thirtysomething filmmaker trying to pull together both her professional and her personal lives.
Copyright Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
In Wolper's celebrity- and image-obsessed L.A., people are defined by who they know, who they sleep with, what kind of sunglasses they wear, and where they get seated at Mr. Chow's. The book follows the ups and downs of Christine Chase, who is currently, as she calls it, experiencing "the lull." She's about to be divorced from her playboy husband (who is now dating a 22-year-old actress) when she decides to make a documentary about a 1970s actor/rock star named Richard Gault. Along the way, she picks up a 23-year-old star chaser as her assistant and ropes friends William, a magazine stand clerk, and Waz, an artist, into helping. The novel's action centers on the quest for Richard, which presents Wolper ample opportunity to philosophize on celebrity worship and our media-saturated culture. There's enough action to keep the reader interested, and no character is made out to be entirely detestable, but this novel will most appeal to those most like Christine--critical of Hollywood but still reading People magazine from cover to cover. Beth Warrell
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Women's Wear Daily
Clever and ruthless. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

USA Today
A fun summer read...thoroughly enjoyable. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Kirkus Reviews
Amusing riffs, sharp wit. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Publishers Weekly
...a quintessential beach read. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Book Description
Can a girl in Hollywood ever trust her girlfriends not to sleep with her famous boyfriend? What's the fastest route out of the life slump that particularly afflicts thirty-five-year-olds who've already done a decade in the "the business"? Should PDPs (Public Displays of Privacy) be outlawed? And what is a "secret celebrity" anyway? Carol Wolper answers these and other burning questions in this sharp-eyed and sly novel, the perfect follow-up to her bestselling The Cigarette Girl.

Secret Celebrity tells the story of Christine Chase, a thirty-five-year-old filmmaker who is seeking deliverance from ambivalence about everything in her personal and professional life via her latest documentary subject: Richard Gault, a famously elusive, mythically cool cultish actor/musician who went underground in the seventies rather than sell out.

In the process of searching out her secret celebrity and discovering how the legend was born, Christine learns a lot about the kind of people willing to pay the steep price of fame, those who'll pay anything just to trail in its wake, and the kind of people you couldn't pay enough. . . .

Achingly inside, hilariously acute, and right on the money, Secret Celebrity is a novel that sends up our celeb-obsessed culture.

About the Author
Carol Wolper is a novelist and screenwriter.