LARB Classics
Скачать книги из серии LARB ClassicsThe Girl from Hollywood
In The Girl from Hollywood, Edgar Rice Burroughs, the legendary creator of Tarzan, turns his eye to the seamy underbelly of Prohibition-era Hollywood. <br> In this gritty tale of the Jazz Age, the Penningtons, a close-knit ranching family from the Santa Monica Mountains, and Shannon, a vulnerable young starlet making her way in Hollywood, find themselves ensnared in an underworld of contraband liquor and illicit drugs. Ashamed of her scandalous past, Shannon finds solace while visiting the Penningtons, but the predatory film director Wilson Crumb soon disrupts their peaceful existence in the hills. <br> A captivating thriller about drug addiction, manipulation, and other sordid Hollywood secrets, as well as the regenerative power of nature and family, The Girl from Hollywood remains as timely today as it was a century ago.
A Stab in the Dark
Facundo Bernal's A Stab in the Dark (Palos de ciego) is a poetic chronicle of the struggles and joys of the Spanish-speaking community in Los Angeles and in the burgeoning border town of Mexicali during the early 1920s. Sharply satirical yet deeply empathetic, Bernal’s poems are both a landmark of Chicano literature and a captivating read. Anthony Seidman's energetic translation – the first into English – preserves the prickly feel of Bernal’s classic, down to the last stab. This edition also features the original Spanish text, an introduction by the prominent Mexicali writer Gabriel Trujillo Muñoz, an additional introduction by critic Josh Kun, and a foreword by writer and lawyer Yxta Maya Murray.
Merton of the Movies
Merton of the Movies, which Gertrude Stein called “the best book about 20th century American youth,” follows midwestern bumpkin Merton Gill’s unlikely journey from a Kansas stockroom to the star-studded set of a silent film. Unfortunately, the actors he’s idolized from afar lose their luster up close, which fuels his desire to become a dramatic leading man – not some slapstick fool. By a stroke of luck, Merton lands a gig as an extra. His natural oafishness catches the eye of stuntwoman Flips Montague, and before long he’s a comic star – the only problem is, it’s all a spoof, and he doesn’t know it.
First published in 1919 in the Saturday Evening Post, and adapted three times to film and once as a Broadway musical, Harry Leon Wilson’s cartoonish tale has earned its place as an essential California classic. This freewheeling romp gets to the heart of any Angeleno’s worst nightmare: what if I’m not in on the joke?