Hollywoodski by Lou Mathews: A Darkly Funny Look at the Highs and Lows of a Hollywood Underdog
Hollywoodski charts 40 years in the life and career of “faded” screenwriter, Dale Davis. As Dale says, “Screenwriters can’t fail, the bar is set too low. We only fade.” His career has been marked by early success, bitter setbacks, and an unshakeable, perhaps misguided, belief in the power of storytelling.
Woven from the memories and stories of a talented screenwriter, Hollywoodski is a darkly funny picaresque journey through the Hollywood dream machine. A former insider now on the outs, scuffling to survive, Dale is still able to record the madness, megalomania and arrogance he faces daily with wit and style.
Lou Mathews
is a fourth-generation Angeleno who lives below the Hollywood sign. He has published short stories in more than 40 literary journals, including the New England Review, Short Story, Witness, ZYZZYVA, Catamaran, Chicago Quarterly Review, and seven issues of Black Clock. His stories have been included in more than 10 fiction anthologies and two textbook series. He has received a Pushcart Prize, two Pushcart Special Mentions, a Best American Mystery Stories Special Mention, a Katherine Anne Porter Prize, as well as a California Arts Commission and National Endowment for the Arts Fiction Fellowships. He has taught in the UCLA Extension Writers' Program since 1989 and is a recipient of the UCLA Extension Teacher of the Year and Outstanding Instructor awards. Lou is the author of Shaky Town and L.A. Breakdown, both available from Tiger Van Books.
Hollywoodski is brilliantly existential and comedic, so funny it hurts in the place where quixotic longings, bizarre encounters, impossible situations and underdogs collide. Mathews has great soul, and his writing dazzles on every page."
— Elizabeth McKenzie, author of Dog of the North and The Portable Veblen
“Not since reading John Fante and Nathaniel West have I had so much fun following a big-hearted crank around paradise. Mathews has a knack for the poetic zinger, and Hollywoodski, in its portrait of a demented industry that values pablum over art, gives him a veritable shooting range. It’s also a love letter to a bygone L.A., before it was conquered by lifestyle boutiques and dragon fruit beauty water. A worthy addition to the L.A. canon.”
— Eric Puchner, author of Model Home and Last Day on Earth
“I think Lou Mathews spiked my drink and stole not only my stories, but those of everyone I’ve worked and complained with. Hollywoodski is a very funny, disturbingly clear-eyed look at what writers and ‘the business’ can do to each other if they’re not careful, told in vivid snapshot scenes. I’m going to re-read it now to try to figure out where I went wrong.”
— Andrew Nicholls, TV showrunner, head writer of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and author of Valuable Lessons and Comedy Writer
“If Hollywood is a state of mind, Lou Mathews is its chief tarot reader — and the cards he lays out will cut you to the L.A. quick.”
— Susie Bright, author and co-founder of On Our Backs