Hollywood Savage

Book excerpt: A scalding exploration of love, marriage, fidelity, and betrayal. “Meet me at five,” the voice said on the answering machine. Four ordinary words yet, when heard by the wrong person, enough to change the course of a marriage. Marooned in Hollywood while writing a screenplay based on his latest bestselling novel, Miles King records in his journals his escalating conviction that his glamorous wife, a New York-based journalist named Maggie, is having an affair with Miles’s favorite student. Amidst the sun-buffed egos and the longing for connection and fame he encounters at every cocktail party and no-name bar in Hollywood, Miles finds unexpected comfort in an affair of his own with Lucy, a young mother whose open, eager mind sparks an irresistible passion in him. A potent brew of lust, guilt, anger, and betrayal, Miles’s journals reveal his constantly shifting emotional state and the perils he must navigate as his fantasies become increasingly hard to distinguish from reality. In Hollywood Savage, acclaimed novelist Kristin McCloy probes one modern man’s psychological depths with stunning accuracy, and illuminates the ways men and women try desperately to reveal themselves to one another, while still always keeping a part of their hearts a secret. Kristin McCloy was born in San Francisco and spent her childhood in Spain, India, and Japan. A graduate of Duke University, she is the author of the novels Velocity and Some Girls. Her novels have been published in more than fifteen countries. She currently lives in Oakland, California.