Genre Fiction
![Lindsay Lynch - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B0C4MKC4R7.jpg)
Do Tell: A Novel
A scintillating, page-turning novel: "There is little more alluring than the promise of secrets, and Do Tell is full of them–glamorous, tawdry, and human. A rich portrait of the lives of early Hollywood's beautiful puppets and those holding their strings." –Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author of This Time Tomorrow
"Do Tell illuminates issues of fame and notoriety as relevant now as they were almost a century ago." –Geraldine Brooks, New York Times bestselling author of Horse
As character actress Edie O'Dare finishes the final year of her contract with FWM Studios, the clock is ticking for her to find a new gig after an undistinguished stint in the pictures. She's long supplemented her income moonlighting for Hollywood's reigning gossip columnist, providing her with the salacious details of every party and premiere. When an up-and-coming starlet hands her a letter alleging an assault from an A-list actor at a party with Edie and the rest of the industry's biggest names in attendance, Edie helps get the story into print and sets off a chain of events that will alter the trajectories of everyone involved.
Now on a new side of the entertainment business, Edie's second act career grants her more control on the page than she ever commanded in front of the camera. But Edie quickly learns that publishing the secrets of those former colleagues she considers friends has repercussions. And when she finds herself in the middle of the trial of the decade, Edie is forced to make an impossible choice with the potential to ruin more than one life.
Debut novelist Lindsay Lynch brings the golden age of Hollywood to glittering life, from star-studded opening nights to backlot brawls, on-location Westerns to the Hollywood Canteen. Through Edie's wry observations, Lynch maps the intricate networks of power that manufacture the magic of the movies, and interrogates who actually gets to tell women's stories.
"Do Tell illuminates issues of fame and notoriety as relevant now as they were almost a century ago." –Geraldine Brooks, New York Times bestselling author of Horse
As character actress Edie O'Dare finishes the final year of her contract with FWM Studios, the clock is ticking for her to find a new gig after an undistinguished stint in the pictures. She's long supplemented her income moonlighting for Hollywood's reigning gossip columnist, providing her with the salacious details of every party and premiere. When an up-and-coming starlet hands her a letter alleging an assault from an A-list actor at a party with Edie and the rest of the industry's biggest names in attendance, Edie helps get the story into print and sets off a chain of events that will alter the trajectories of everyone involved.
Now on a new side of the entertainment business, Edie's second act career grants her more control on the page than she ever commanded in front of the camera. But Edie quickly learns that publishing the secrets of those former colleagues she considers friends has repercussions. And when she finds herself in the middle of the trial of the decade, Edie is forced to make an impossible choice with the potential to ruin more than one life.
Debut novelist Lindsay Lynch brings the golden age of Hollywood to glittering life, from star-studded opening nights to backlot brawls, on-location Westerns to the Hollywood Canteen. Through Edie's wry observations, Lynch maps the intricate networks of power that manufacture the magic of the movies, and interrogates who actually gets to tell women's stories.
Editorial Reviews
"A wonderful, provocative novel about the way time changes how we see the world. Edie O'Dare is a failed Hollywood actress who reinvents herself as a gossip columnist in order to keep a roof over her head, only to discover that this is the job she's good at. Like our intrepid narrator, Do Tell manages to be both funny and substantive, breezy and wise. I stepped into the stream of the narrative and didn't look up until I came to the last page."
--Ann Patchett, New York Times bestselling author of The Dutch House
"Gossip columnist Edie O'Dare has enemies and sources, but no friends in a Golden Age Hollywood whose gleam is tarnished by exploitation, cruelty and betrayal. Like a latter-day Cecil B. DeMille, Lindsay Lynch deftly directs her large cast of morally complex characters to illuminate issues of fame and notoriety as relevant now as they were almost a century ago."
--Geraldine Brooks, New York Times bestselling author of Horse
"There is little more alluring than the promise of secrets, and Do Tell is full of them--glamorous, tawdry, and human. Lindsay Lynch has created a rich portrait of the lives of early Hollywood's beautiful puppets and those holding their strings."
--Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author of This Time Tomorrow
"In Do Tell Lindsay Lynch takes a glance back at golden-age Hollywood and captures the fizzy magic, the secret lives, and the deep, destructive misogyny within the industry's DNA. This is a wry, entertaining, and incisive debut."
--Lily King, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers
"This dazzling novel is a riveting exposé of the dream factory which will surprise readers at every turn. You won't be able to put it down."
--Adriana Trigiani, New York Times bestselling author of T...
--Ann Patchett, New York Times bestselling author of The Dutch House
"Gossip columnist Edie O'Dare has enemies and sources, but no friends in a Golden Age Hollywood whose gleam is tarnished by exploitation, cruelty and betrayal. Like a latter-day Cecil B. DeMille, Lindsay Lynch deftly directs her large cast of morally complex characters to illuminate issues of fame and notoriety as relevant now as they were almost a century ago."
--Geraldine Brooks, New York Times bestselling author of Horse
"There is little more alluring than the promise of secrets, and Do Tell is full of them--glamorous, tawdry, and human. Lindsay Lynch has created a rich portrait of the lives of early Hollywood's beautiful puppets and those holding their strings."
--Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author of This Time Tomorrow
"In Do Tell Lindsay Lynch takes a glance back at golden-age Hollywood and captures the fizzy magic, the secret lives, and the deep, destructive misogyny within the industry's DNA. This is a wry, entertaining, and incisive debut."
--Lily King, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers
"This dazzling novel is a riveting exposé of the dream factory which will surprise readers at every turn. You won't be able to put it down."
--Adriana Trigiani, New York Times bestselling author of T...
Short Excerpt Teaser
One
The last time I saw Charles Landrieu in Los Angeles, he told me I had gotten everything wrong.
"Everything?" I asked him.
Everything.
It wasn't the first time someone had leveled this accusation against me and I was certain it wouldn't be the last.
Actors talk so much--not enough people focus on the things they won't say.
So I did. I built my career in silences and averted glances, paying attention to who missed work, who skipped parties. I asked why, and when no one answered, I filled in the blanks myself.
The day I talked with Charles, I considered asking him to give me whatever he believed to be the correct story. To tell me what I had missed. By that time, he was blacklisted from every studio in Hollywood; he had nothing to lose.
But he didn't want to talk. He paced around my living room and made reference to a party we'd all been at before the war--he had every reason to remember it well; it was his engagement party. That was all he had to say. Charles Landrieu was done talking for a while.
I told him to gain ten pounds and join the army. He did.
Let's talk about the night in question, the night I allegedly ruined a life or two, or three: Thomas Brodbeck's party celebrating the engagement of FWM Studios stars Charles Landrieu and Nell Parker, August 1939.
The guest list included a group of people whose lives would be altered by that night: Charles and Nell; Augustan Charters and myself; Margy Prescott and her notably absent husband, Hal Bingham; and Sophie Melrose, a young actress who only wanted to go to her first Hollywood party. Finally, there was the man who had not been invited but arrived anyway: Freddy Clarke.
When I told my brother, Seb, we'd be stopping at a party that night, I might have intentionally withheld some details. It was his first day in Los Angeles, so the name Thomas Brodbeck meant little to him. There wasn't any reason why Sebastian O'Shaughnessy, darling of the New York literati, should have had any idea who the FWM studio chief was, or even what a studio chief did. As soon as I began listing the names of actors and actresses, though, Seb understood.
"We won't have to stay long?" he asked.
"An hour at the most, not even that," I said. I told him we had to say hello to Brodbeck and congratulate Charles and Nell on their pretend engagement. Public appearances like these were part of my contract with the studio.
I had convinced Seb to move to Hollywood on the pretense that I was a moderately successful actress who could land him a job screenwriting.
The thing is, I really was a moderately successful actress who could land him a job screenwriting. My only omission to my brother was that I had only three months left on my contract and FWM Studios didn't renew contracts for moderately successful actresses.
"Anyway, you have to talk to Augustan," I said as I poured us each a glass of whiskey--mine on the rocks, his straight.
"I don't know who that is."
"You'll love him," I lied. "He runs all the things at FWM that no one else has the time to run. I already told him you'd be there. He's excited to meet you. I'm certain he can get you a job."
As I began going up the stairs to change into my dress, Seb demanded that I wait a goddamn minute. Seb still had a heavy accent from our years growing up in Boston. His voice went up as he spoke to me, and for a moment I saw the young boy he had once been--the lanky awkwardness of his posture and the redness in his pale cheeks. Though we regularly wrote each other, I hadn't seen him in person for a long time. Between the two of us, I was the one who could afford to travel, and I hadn't left California since the early thirties. I'd talked about it in my letters to him, swearing that I'd take the time off to visit. But the time off never came.
"You told me I already had a job," he said.
I shook my head and pursed my lips. "I wouldn't have said that."
Seb went over to his worn-down briefcase by the front door and began rummaging through it. He produced a handwritten letter. He went over to the couch and smoothed the letter out on the coffee table. I watched as he bent over it, carefully running his finger along each line.
"There," he said, pointing to the letter. "In your own words, one week ago: ‘If you come to Hollywood, you'll have a job.' "
I nodded and leaned against the banister. "Yes, you will have a job. Look at you-college graduate, one novel published already. You're very employable! That's why we're going to the party."
"I took out my savings to come here, Edie," he said. "I got rid of everything I had!"
"And I'm sure the mattress that lived on your floor is happy to begin anew in ...
The last time I saw Charles Landrieu in Los Angeles, he told me I had gotten everything wrong.
"Everything?" I asked him.
Everything.
It wasn't the first time someone had leveled this accusation against me and I was certain it wouldn't be the last.
Actors talk so much--not enough people focus on the things they won't say.
So I did. I built my career in silences and averted glances, paying attention to who missed work, who skipped parties. I asked why, and when no one answered, I filled in the blanks myself.
The day I talked with Charles, I considered asking him to give me whatever he believed to be the correct story. To tell me what I had missed. By that time, he was blacklisted from every studio in Hollywood; he had nothing to lose.
But he didn't want to talk. He paced around my living room and made reference to a party we'd all been at before the war--he had every reason to remember it well; it was his engagement party. That was all he had to say. Charles Landrieu was done talking for a while.
I told him to gain ten pounds and join the army. He did.
Let's talk about the night in question, the night I allegedly ruined a life or two, or three: Thomas Brodbeck's party celebrating the engagement of FWM Studios stars Charles Landrieu and Nell Parker, August 1939.
The guest list included a group of people whose lives would be altered by that night: Charles and Nell; Augustan Charters and myself; Margy Prescott and her notably absent husband, Hal Bingham; and Sophie Melrose, a young actress who only wanted to go to her first Hollywood party. Finally, there was the man who had not been invited but arrived anyway: Freddy Clarke.
When I told my brother, Seb, we'd be stopping at a party that night, I might have intentionally withheld some details. It was his first day in Los Angeles, so the name Thomas Brodbeck meant little to him. There wasn't any reason why Sebastian O'Shaughnessy, darling of the New York literati, should have had any idea who the FWM studio chief was, or even what a studio chief did. As soon as I began listing the names of actors and actresses, though, Seb understood.
"We won't have to stay long?" he asked.
"An hour at the most, not even that," I said. I told him we had to say hello to Brodbeck and congratulate Charles and Nell on their pretend engagement. Public appearances like these were part of my contract with the studio.
I had convinced Seb to move to Hollywood on the pretense that I was a moderately successful actress who could land him a job screenwriting.
The thing is, I really was a moderately successful actress who could land him a job screenwriting. My only omission to my brother was that I had only three months left on my contract and FWM Studios didn't renew contracts for moderately successful actresses.
"Anyway, you have to talk to Augustan," I said as I poured us each a glass of whiskey--mine on the rocks, his straight.
"I don't know who that is."
"You'll love him," I lied. "He runs all the things at FWM that no one else has the time to run. I already told him you'd be there. He's excited to meet you. I'm certain he can get you a job."
As I began going up the stairs to change into my dress, Seb demanded that I wait a goddamn minute. Seb still had a heavy accent from our years growing up in Boston. His voice went up as he spoke to me, and for a moment I saw the young boy he had once been--the lanky awkwardness of his posture and the redness in his pale cheeks. Though we regularly wrote each other, I hadn't seen him in person for a long time. Between the two of us, I was the one who could afford to travel, and I hadn't left California since the early thirties. I'd talked about it in my letters to him, swearing that I'd take the time off to visit. But the time off never came.
"You told me I already had a job," he said.
I shook my head and pursed my lips. "I wouldn't have said that."
Seb went over to his worn-down briefcase by the front door and began rummaging through it. He produced a handwritten letter. He went over to the couch and smoothed the letter out on the coffee table. I watched as he bent over it, carefully running his finger along each line.
"There," he said, pointing to the letter. "In your own words, one week ago: ‘If you come to Hollywood, you'll have a job.' "
I nodded and leaned against the banister. "Yes, you will have a job. Look at you-college graduate, one novel published already. You're very employable! That's why we're going to the party."
"I took out my savings to come here, Edie," he said. "I got rid of everything I had!"
"And I'm sure the mattress that lived on your floor is happy to begin anew in ...
