Book 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.
