Sunnyside

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Description

From the author of the acclaimed CARTER BEATS THE DEVIL comes a grand entertainment with the brilliantly realized figure of Charlie Chaplin at its centre: a novel at once cinematic and intimate, thrilling and darkly comic, which dramatizes the moment when American capitalism, a world at war, and the emerging mecca of Hollywood intersect to spawn an enduring culture of celebrity.

SUNNYSIDE follows three overlapping fortunes: Leland Wheeler, son of the last (and worst) Wild West star, as he heads to the battlefields of France; snobbish Hugo Black, drafted to fight in Russia under the British general, Edmund Ironside; and Chaplin himself, contending with studio moguls, accusations of cowardice, his unchecked heart and, most menacing of all, his mother, as he pursues the goal of making a movie as good as he was .

With a cast of enthralling characters both historical and fictional, SUNNYSIDE is a heart-rending, spellbinding novel about dreams, ambition and the dawn of the modern age.

Reviews

A breathless stupendous novel...From lighthouse to Hollywood to starlets to war to stardom to madness to genius Gold's startling narrative carries us across the world and back. Gold proves himself yet again to be the hungriest craftiest funniest and most humane novelist we have. - Junot Diaz

An elegant blend of reality and fiction, war drama and Hollywood glamour . . . It is wholly exhausting and entirely satisfying: to borrow an idea from Chaplin's great personal-artistic quest in the book, it's a work as good as Gold. - Publishers Weekly

This brimming saga begins in 1916 with a bang and never lets up...The cascade of historic details Gold generates is breathtaking, but it is his electrifying characters, wildly inventive action replete with comedic mishaps and witty dialogue, and trenchant insights into the absurdity of war and the mythic dimension of movies that gather force and velocity to make this such a hilarious, brilliant, and transporting novel. - Booklist

A kaleidoscopic tale of romance and intrigue...This is a book to remind you of the pleasures of chuckling aloud in public...After a dazzling debut, he has managed to pull off a consummate, ambitious encore. Sunnyside is a cane-twirling, bowler-doffing triumph - Christian House, Independent on Sunday

An insanely ambitious novel...entertaining and thought-provoking - Aravind Adig

Author Bio

Glen David Gold was born in Hollywood and raised in San Francisco where he began his life-long love of the strange and dazzling aspects of history. His first novel, CARTER BEATS THE DEVIL was published in 2001, when it was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, and has been translated into 14 languages. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, Alice Sebold.