Book Launch for HOLLYWOODSKI by Lou Mathews

ABOUT THE BOOK

A compelling novel-in-stories, Hollywoodski showcases a self-described “faded” screenwriter’s forty-year career.

Dale Davis is a man encumbered by a natural writing talent, corrupted by early success, and reduced to scrambling for crumbs. He arrives in Hollywood, unbattered and innocent, with a novel about his days as an almost Olympic-caliber swimmer. But his faith in the prevailing powers of talent and justice in Tinseltown leaves him essentially black-listed and unemployable, a talented writer who just can’t get paid. Despite the fading of a once-promising career, Davis still believes that his talent will propel him back into prominence. But that belief, in Hollywood, is about as realistic as the belief that “Someday my prince will come,” and as likely to make you depressed and crazy.

Hollywoodski is a nonlinear journey through Davis’s life, weaving his memories with stories he’s written over the years, charting how his hopes and dreams have changed over time. Featuring stories originally published in prominent publications such as The New England Review, The Los Angeles Reader, and Six Three Whiskey, Hollywoodski is a sweeping and inventive telling of the strange avenues that a life follows.

A BOUT THE AUTHOR

LOU MATHEWS lives in Los Angeles just below the Hollywood sign and is a fourth generation Angeleno. Married at 19, he worked his way through U.C. Santa Cruz as a gas station attendant and mechanic and continued to work as a mechanic until he was 39. His first novel, L.A. Breakdown, about illegal street racing, was picked by the Los Angeles Times as a Best Book of1999. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction, a California Arts Council Fiction Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize and a Katherine Anne Porter Prize. His short stories have been published in more than 40 literary magazines including Short Story, ZYZZYVA, New England Review, Witness, Catamaran, Chicago Quarterly Review and Black Clock, twelve fiction anthologies and two textbook series. He has taught in UCLA Extension’s renowned Writer’s Program since 1989 and is a recipient of Teacher of the Year and Outstanding Instructor Awards.

His last novel, Shaky Town, was published in September 2021 and was long-listed for the 2022 Tournament of Books. More details on Mathews, Shaky Town and Hollywoodski can be found at

https://www.tigervanbooks.com/shaky-town

ABOUT THE INTERLOCUTOR

J. RYAN STRADAL is the author of New York Times bestseller Kitchens of the Great Midwest and national bestseller The Lager Queen of Minnesota. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Granta, The Rumpus, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. His debut, Kitchens of the Great Midwest, won the American Booksellers Association Indies Choice Award for Adult Debut Book of the Year. Born and raised in Minnesota, he now lives in California with his family.

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