I Should Have Stayed Home

By Horace McCoy,

Book cover of I Should Have Stayed Home

Book description

TEMPTATION and DESIRE in Hollywood! Ralph Carston, a handsome young man from Georgia, and roommate Mona Matthews work as extras and dream of Hollywood stardom when a courtroom fracas by Mona gives them a flash of notoriety. This leads to a swank Hollywood party and an introduction to Ethel Smithers,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked I Should Have Stayed Home as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Hardboiled specialist Horace McCoy made his mark as an unsparing chronicler of Depression-era despair with his 1935 masterpiece They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?. His 1938 novel isn't nearly as good, but it feels so lived-in and sordid that it tells major truths about the dreamers, users, and big talents who populated '30s Hollywood. In it, Ralph and Mona, two modestly talented beautiful losers, hit Tinseltown hungering for stardom. But Ralph, 18 years before the doomed screenwriter hero of Sunset Boulevard, winds up providing stud service to a wealthy older woman and Mona finds her own private hell. The…

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