Queer People

Book excerpt: A brilliantly savage story, "Queer People "is, according to Budd Schulberg, a racy testament to an era as totally vanished as the civilization of the Aztecs, and if not "the "Hollywood novel is at least a truly seminal work. Today s readers will recognize in this long-forgotten Hollywood novel the seeds of three longer-lived ones, "The Day of the Locust," " What Makes Sammy Run?," " "and "The Last Tycoon. "They may also recognize Whitey, the hero of the Grahams novel, as a forerunner of F. Scott Fitzgerald s Pat Hobby.The central figure in the novel is an archetypal newspaper reporter who drifts to Hollywood. Whitey discovers the social microcosm of the studio-people, and finds himself in his element. He penetrates strange places and encounters queer peoplethe story conference, the three-day party, the titans and the moguls. When a murder ends his interlude he leaves Hollywood as casually as he discovered it.Originally published in 1930 "Queer People "was a scandalous "roman a clef, "irreverent to the industry, and totally amoralqualities lacking in later Hollywood fiction. Hence it is at once an important social document and an exciting original work."