Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: A Novel
Quentin Tarantino
Harper Perennial 2021
Reviewed by Bob Wake
Dwight Garner’s cautiously laudatory New York Times review of filmmaker Quentin Tarantino’s epic 400-page novelization of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood gets it right: “If it were written better, it’d be written worse.” Tarantino’s novel is pulp fiction best appreciated as a companion text, or better yet, a skeleton key to the movie. Lots of riotous untold backstory of how Hollywood stuntman Cliff Booth (played by Brad Pitt in the movie) comes by his casual proficiency with ultraviolence. There’s a deeper dive into Manson Family dynamics, perhaps not as nuanced as Emma Cline’s The Girls, but no less chilling. The novel even has its own surprise ending that cleverly subverts the movie’s surprise ending. There are seedy detours into Hollywood lore, including a poignant depiction of alcoholic actor Aldo Ray’s decline. Most enjoyable is the book’s torrent of geeky motor-mouthing film criticism, similar in tone to the engaging program notes that the director has been penning in recent years since purchasing the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles.
Coffee Spew 