The Reading Warehouse

One of the most original novels of Los Angeles in recent years, Stars Screaming takes us beyond the shimmering phenomenon of Hollywood into back streets strewn with the fallout of fame and fortune. Ray Burk is a network censor struggling to break into The Business as a screenwriter. As his wife begins to lose her grip on reality, Burk spends entire days in his car on an endless journey through Los Angeles. His path weaves the present of his dissolving family with the shattering events of his past, circling into the Los Angeles underworld, where his friends, lovers, and enemies intertwine with a volatile mix of pimps, winos, and washed-up starlets who drink away the afternoons trying to recapture the glory days that somehow evaded them. And as the dark secrets emerge, Burk too begins to unravel.

Spanning an arc from the golden 1930s to the bitter 1970s, Stars Screaming is a remarkable portrait of a lost era that captures the moment when the American dream fell apart.