Big Red

A Novel Starring Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles

Big Red
Jerome Charyn
RRP:
NZ$ 32.99
Our Price:
NZ$ 26.39
Paperback
h198 x 129mm - 288pg
1 Dec 2022 UK
International import eta 10-19 days
9780857305244
Out Of Stock
Currently no stock in-store, stock is sourced to your order
Quantity:
 
 
Narrated by a starry-eyed reporter, Big Red reimagines the tragic career of Rita Hayworth and her indomitable husband, Orson Welles. Set amidst the noir glamour of Hollywood' s Golden Age, Big Red reenvisions the life of one of America' s most enduring icons: Gilda herself, Rita Hayworth, whose fiery red hair and hypnotic dancing helped make her the quintessential movie star of the 1940s. With narrator Rusty Redburn - a feisty second-string gossip columnist from Kalamazoo tasked with spying on Hayworth by Columbia movie mogul Harry ' The Janitor' Cohn - as our guide, we follow the meteoric rise and heartrending demise of the actress, encountering her exploitative father, Eduardo; her controlling husband, ' boy genius' Orson Welles; and notorious journalist Louella Parsons, among many others. Mixing his trademark screwball comedy and unerring tragedy, Jerome Charyn, with his ' polymorphous imagination' (Jonathan Lethem) reanimates film classics such as Cover Girl, Gilda, and The Lady from Shanghai. An insightful, tender portrait of a seemingly halcyon age before blockbusters and film franchises, Big Red promises to consume both Hollywood cinephiles and neophytes alike.
Charyn, a veteran novelist, biographer and essayist, subtly evokes F. Scott Fitzgerald' s The Great Gatsby in telling his saga of star-crossed charismatics through the eyes of an all-seeing peripheral figure. . . Inspired * Wall Street Journal * Short review quote in here * CrimeReads * Written with love and affection for its subject, Big Red is an entrancing work of historical fiction that serves as a glimpse into Rita Hayworth' s life far beyond her stardom. . . Vivid, humorous, and perceptive. . . Charyn' s love for film history shines through * Chicago Review of Books * An unforgettable portrait of American film royalty * Apple Books (Best Books of August) * Charyn plausibly recreates another chapter in American history in this affecting and searing portrait of Silver Screen superstars Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles. . . It' s a rewarding paean to some of cinema' s greats * Publishers Weekly (starred review) *
Jerome Charyn is the author of more than fifty works of fiction and nonfiction. Among other honors, he has received the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and his novels have been selected as finalists for the Firecracker Award and PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Charyn lives in New York.

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