Hollywood was in the news last week but not forthe usual glamor, gossip and new movie roll outs. Actors joined writers, for the first time in sixty years, in calling a strike to address some of the new issues of our changing media world. They seek to protect themselves from the emerging threat of AI in co-opting their likenesses and desire to get a meaningful piece of residuals in the new age of streaming services.

I thought it interesting that this new novel, DO TELL, was released the very same week. To give some historical perspective, it looked back at the Hollywood studio system of the 1930s and 40s. I think its safe to say it was set in a time when actors and writers clearly had no agency at all.

As a fan of classic movies, the intrigue of the contract movie studio system, and the celebrity gossip columnists of the time, DO TELL called out to me as a perfect summer read.  I’m sorry to say I was disheartened by how disappointing it was.

Have you ever read a book not sure if you’ve already read the chapter? Or, please. Tell me something new about this girl. While the characters might have been meant to be stereotypes of the time, they were hardly distinguishable from one another. Save one, all were the same in similar ways. Ambitious. At risk of being dropped by studio if they didn’t do what was expected on and off camera. Vain and superficial.  One character fitting that description? Of course.  But not all.  And there was no attempt at giving any of them any depth.

The main character, Edie O’Dare, was equally unlikeable and underdeveloped. A girl who came to Hollywood from marginal circumstances, she either was never cast in roles that could showcase her talent or wasn’t a very good actress, so her three-year contract was terminated. 

But Edie foresaw her limited acting career was petering out and took advantage of the access she had on set to make a little money on the side. She supplied tasty tidbits of insider information to a prominent gossip columnist for extra cash. Her true talent was slipping into places with the most notorious actors and getting them to talk to her. This was how she found a new, better paying career.  

Through somewhat dubious means, Edie got her own column on the back of a studio trial. One of their leading men raped a young up and coming starlet and the case went to trial. The studio had too much invested in him to let the truth come out. What could have been very dramatic was not. It was flat and repetitive and unsatisfying. We all know historically what the Hollywood culture did to young women and for how long it prevailed but the way this was presented was more annoying than enraging.

I plowed through to the story’s end in the hope something would happen for or to Edie…

While I had anticipated a Hedda Hopperesque tale or perhaps, Louella Parsons like story, this was a thin recounting of the power of the Hollywood studio system that might have been told in half the space.

Lindsay Lynch, author

The studio system is long gone and actors and writers have had more agency. Actors and writers evolved from a system when the only way to work was to sign a contract that gave away their power and choice. The studio dictated everything from what movies an actor made, who he/she dated, what clothing was worn, what events were attended. Me Too finally put sexual misconduct into the light.

Another change is the lack of Edie O’Days. Social media makes anyone a potential gossip columnist.

If nothing else, this book was a reminder of an ugly past beneath the veneer of glamor.

My thanks to Netgalley and Doubleday for allowing me to read an advanced readers copy.

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