The Actress: A Novel - Hardcover

"Amy Sohn's The Actress is gorgeous and blood-tingling, is smart and fun, is perfect. It's timely, with links to the real world that go much deeper than mere references. It's a rare treat to read a book you know will be beloved." -- Darin Strauss, author of Half a Life "Amy Sohn's The Actress is one heck of a lot of fun to read and it also offers up rich moral complexities. Maddy, the main character, is both modern and ageless; the young woman who wants it all NOW." -- Darcey Steinke, author of Sister Golden Hair "Amy Sohn peels back the tabloid curtain and portrays, in granular detail, the emotional and vocational machinations of a made-in-Hollywood marriage. The Actress is a riveting and frothy novel." -- Teddy Wayne, author of The Love Song of Jonny Valentine "Charismatic, sophisticated and beguiling, The Actress unfurls as seamlessly as a red carpet on opening night. Amy Sohn has written a textured, fresh take on classic, incendiary Hollywood tropes-the closeted leading man, arranged marriage, ambitious ingenues, ruthless agents-that is also a relatable, nuanced story of love and marriage. The Actress is an intelligent and humane novel that manages to civilize Hollywood while honoring its often overlooked complexities and still leaving its wicked vitality intact." -- Elizabeth Kelly, author of Apologize, Apologize! and The Last Summer of the Camperdowns "Amy Sohn's unputdownable The Actress is like Henry James crossbred with the very best of US Weekly. An addictive saga of love, lust, fame, and friendship centered on a fascinating question: are we who we pretend to be?" -- Elisa Albert, author of The Book of Dahlia and How This Night is Different "In the story of Maddy Freed, indie actress goneHollywood A-list, Amy Sohn delivers at once a serious Bildungsroman and asurreptitious pleasure. The Actress is juicy and addictive, aJamesian Page Six of a novel." -- Elizabeth Gaffney, author of When the World Was Young "Amy Sohn turns her razor-sharp eye on stardom in this sexy and engaging novel. The Actress delves deep into the nature of love and marriage, and offers a behind-the-scenes studio tour of Hollywood to boot." -- Emma Straub, author of The Vacationers "Fun, funny, steamy and unputdownable." * Entertainment Weekly, "Must List" * "[The Actress sits] perfectly between Joan Didion's Play It As It Lays and Jackie Collins' Hollywood Wives.... The great strength of The Actress lies in Sohn's narrativizing of Maddy's... journey from innocent to hardened veteran, as a Gaslight-style mystery. Our heroine is dropped into the cauldron of Hollywood life, [and] Sohn very smartly dramatizes the contradictory dictates the true-to-life industry imposes on many actresses... A valuable contribution to the canon of Hollywood fiction-a canon which is actually, incredibly, more sorely lacking strong female points of view than even Hollywood movies." * Slate *

All Maddy Freed has ever wanted is to act. When the indie film she made with her director boyfriend, Dan, wins her a special prize at the Mile's End Film Festival, she's thrilled, though she has no idea how dramatically it will come to change her life. But Maddy's success catches the attention of Bridget Ostrow, a legendary talent manager whose biggest client is Hollywood heartthrob Steven Weller. Before Maddy knows it, her career is roaring onto the express track. Bridget secures Maddy an audition for an Oscar-worthy role opposite Steven, and soon the two actors are thrown together in the midst of Europe's Old World charm. Rumours about Steven's sexual orientation have circulated for years, but it doesn't take long for the professional relationship to grow personal, or for Maddy to turn her back on her old friends and trade New York for L.A. The new couple's whirlwind wedding does nothing to stop the rumours, however, and cracks start appearing in their fairy-tale romance. As Maddy stands by the man she believes is the love of her life, she begins to question just how much she knows about her leading role...as Steven's wife. A big, lively breakout novel from bestselling author Amy Sohn,The Actressis a romantic, literary page-turner about Hollywood fame, the treachery of love, and the pleasures and pains of female ambition.