One of the greatest books on Hollywood's glitzy artifice and its depressing underbelly. Aspiring young artist Tod Hackett arrives in Los Angeles with grand ambitions and begins working for the movie studios. However, reality soon sets in and the glittering façade of Hollywood fades into the background, as Tod navigates through the lonely and disenfranchised majority, encountering beautiful actress Fay Greener, frustrated accountant Homer Simpson, and a motley crew of cowboys, crooks, and stars on the wax and wane. A classic study of early Hollywood, each page sizzles with brutality and black humor, as life in the bristling, parched underbelly moves towards a thundering climax.