Genre Fiction
![Anthony Marra - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B009RGUUCG.jpg)
Mercury Pictures Presents: A Novel
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Includes a behind-the-scenes conversation with bestselling novelist Amor Towles • The epic story of a brilliant woman who must reinvent herself to survive in 1940s Hollywood and fascist Europe, a timeless tale of love, deceit, and sacrifice-and a perfect book club pick-from the award-winning author of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
"A genuinely moving and life-affirming novel that's a true joy to read."-Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere
"A gorgeous book . . . sublime."-The New York Times (Editors' Choice)
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: NPR, The Guardian, Booklist
Like many before her, Maria Lagana has come to Hollywood to outrun her past. Born in Rome, where every Sunday her father took her to the cinema instead of church, Maria immigrates with her mother to Los Angeles after a childhood transgression leads to her father's arrest.
Fifteen years later, on the eve of America's entry into World War II, Maria is an associate producer at Mercury Pictures, trying to keep her personal and professional lives from falling apart. Her mother won't speak to her. Her boss, a man of many toupees, has been summoned to Washington by congressional investigators. Her boyfriend, a virtuoso Chinese American actor, can't escape the studio's narrow typecasting. And the studio itself, Maria's only home in exile, teeters on the verge of bankruptcy.
Over the coming months, as the bright lights go dark across Los Angeles, Mercury Pictures becomes a nexus of European émigrés: modernist poets trying their luck as B-movie screenwriters, once-celebrated architects becoming scale-model miniaturists, and refugee actors finding work playing the very villains they fled. While the world descends into war, Maria rises through a maze of conflicting politics, divided loyalties, and jockeying ambitions. But when the arrival of a stranger from her father's past threatens Maria's carefully constructed facade, she must finally confront her father's fate-and her own.
Written with intelligence, wit, and an exhilarating sense of possibility, Mercury Pictures Presents spans many moods and tones, from the heartbreaking to the ecstatic. It is a love letter to life's bit players, a panorama of an era that casts a long shadow over our own, and a tour de force by a novelist whose work The Washington Post calls "a flash in the heavens that makes you look up and believe in miracles."
"A genuinely moving and life-affirming novel that's a true joy to read."-Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere
"A gorgeous book . . . sublime."-The New York Times (Editors' Choice)
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: NPR, The Guardian, Booklist
Like many before her, Maria Lagana has come to Hollywood to outrun her past. Born in Rome, where every Sunday her father took her to the cinema instead of church, Maria immigrates with her mother to Los Angeles after a childhood transgression leads to her father's arrest.
Fifteen years later, on the eve of America's entry into World War II, Maria is an associate producer at Mercury Pictures, trying to keep her personal and professional lives from falling apart. Her mother won't speak to her. Her boss, a man of many toupees, has been summoned to Washington by congressional investigators. Her boyfriend, a virtuoso Chinese American actor, can't escape the studio's narrow typecasting. And the studio itself, Maria's only home in exile, teeters on the verge of bankruptcy.
Over the coming months, as the bright lights go dark across Los Angeles, Mercury Pictures becomes a nexus of European émigrés: modernist poets trying their luck as B-movie screenwriters, once-celebrated architects becoming scale-model miniaturists, and refugee actors finding work playing the very villains they fled. While the world descends into war, Maria rises through a maze of conflicting politics, divided loyalties, and jockeying ambitions. But when the arrival of a stranger from her father's past threatens Maria's carefully constructed facade, she must finally confront her father's fate-and her own.
Written with intelligence, wit, and an exhilarating sense of possibility, Mercury Pictures Presents spans many moods and tones, from the heartbreaking to the ecstatic. It is a love letter to life's bit players, a panorama of an era that casts a long shadow over our own, and a tour de force by a novelist whose work The Washington Post calls "a flash in the heavens that makes you look up and believe in miracles."
Editorial Reviews
"A gorgeous book . . . sublime."-The New York Times (Editors' Choice)
"With Mercury Pictures Presents [Marra] cements himself as one of the most deft and most enjoyable novelists working today. . . . I could go on for pages about my admiration for Marra's technique and execution . . . but what I most recall is the general warmth of feeling every time I . . . spent time in that world."-Chicago Tribune
"Epically entertaining . . . You'll laugh, you'll cry in the marvelous Mercury Pictures Presents."-San Francisco Chronicle
"So much old-time snappy wit that Mercury Pictures Presents should come with popcorn and a 78-ounce Coke."-Ron Charles, The Washington Post
"Marra returns with a sprawling story that ushers readers through the streets of pre-World War II Rome. . . . But as compelling as the story and characters are, the real star is the writing. Marra's ability to capture and render both the joy and pain of life . . . remains unmatched."-NPR
"Crackling with wit . . . Marra's new novel is as epic in sweep as a movie set yet delineates the inner workings of the human heart with a miniaturist's precision. Mercury Pictures Presents explores the endless give-and-take between life and art, the cost of integrity, and the ways we must make peace with the past in order to move toward the future."-Celeste Ng
"Marra has been compared to Nabokov, Kafka, and Orwell. The word 'brilliant' gets used in all his reviews. Mercury Pictures Presents is a great literary read."-Ann Patchett
"Funny, verbally inventive and, ultimately, very moving, Mercury Pictures Presents is a wonderful novel."-Sunday Times UK, Book of the Month
"Marra has ascended to the top of the literary ranks."-
"With Mercury Pictures Presents [Marra] cements himself as one of the most deft and most enjoyable novelists working today. . . . I could go on for pages about my admiration for Marra's technique and execution . . . but what I most recall is the general warmth of feeling every time I . . . spent time in that world."-Chicago Tribune
"Epically entertaining . . . You'll laugh, you'll cry in the marvelous Mercury Pictures Presents."-San Francisco Chronicle
"So much old-time snappy wit that Mercury Pictures Presents should come with popcorn and a 78-ounce Coke."-Ron Charles, The Washington Post
"Marra returns with a sprawling story that ushers readers through the streets of pre-World War II Rome. . . . But as compelling as the story and characters are, the real star is the writing. Marra's ability to capture and render both the joy and pain of life . . . remains unmatched."-NPR
"Crackling with wit . . . Marra's new novel is as epic in sweep as a movie set yet delineates the inner workings of the human heart with a miniaturist's precision. Mercury Pictures Presents explores the endless give-and-take between life and art, the cost of integrity, and the ways we must make peace with the past in order to move toward the future."-Celeste Ng
"Marra has been compared to Nabokov, Kafka, and Orwell. The word 'brilliant' gets used in all his reviews. Mercury Pictures Presents is a great literary read."-Ann Patchett
"Funny, verbally inventive and, ultimately, very moving, Mercury Pictures Presents is a wonderful novel."-Sunday Times UK, Book of the Month
"Marra has ascended to the top of the literary ranks."-
Readers Top Reviews
William CozensWin
A brilliant writer whose clever descriptions and metaphors have triumphed over the telling of a story. I loved his ‘A Constellation of Vital Phenomena’ - this book failed to hit that mark.
tGPDOUGLAS L GOLD
Marra never uses on word when ten will do. I had to keep putting the book down and taking a run at it later. I liked his characters although the Feldmans were more caracatures than characters. For me, a tough read.
James B. KrasnooG
A good story that holds interest. Author packs his succinct sentences with deftly used vocabulary enriching his characters and advancing the story. His earlier novel is also worth reading. Offers a in depth view of the motion picture industry during WW2 years.
LDBSCJames B. Kra
This is a tale of WWII unlike any I have read so far. It is a look at émigrés in Hollywood who leave their countries to escape fascism and end up constrained and imprisoned in different ways in the US. We follow the tale of Maria and her parents – the separation and difficult relationships; as well as her father’s unofficially adopted son who Maria later blames for leaving her father behind. It is about the guilt we carry with us from our past and how our stories shape and intertwine with the stories of others. The novel looks at the motion picture studios and how they were made to develop films based on the propaganda of the day; which in a way parallels the stories we tell ourselves about who we are in this world. We move back and forth between the characters pasts in Italy and their wartime lives in Los Angeles. There are many funny as well as touching moments throughout the book. It takes awhile for the book to start feeling solid. I kept wondering where it was taking me and when it would be over. Eventually, the build-up of characters and contexts brings the tales of various characters together in a fairly satisfying way and there are some interesting moments along the way. This book integrates a lot of research but it doesn’t feel like it as you read it. I appreciated the nuggets of historical fact that I was unfamiliar with: the building of fake towns on airline hangars to disguise them from bombardment; the building of a Berlin neighborhood in Utah to test weaponry and military tactics. It was also fun to learn that the great aunts are built on the authors real great aunts. I enjoyed the book but I can’t say it blew me away.
Short Excerpt Teaser
Sunny Siberia
1
When you entered the executive offices of Mercury Pictures International, you would first see a scale model of the studio itself. Artie Feldman, co-founder and head of production, installed it in the lobby to distract skittish investors from second thoughts. Complete with back lot, sound stages, and facilities buildings, the miniature was a faithful replica of the ten-acre studio in which it sat. Maria Lagana, as rendered by the miniaturist, was a tiny, featureless figure looking out Artie's office window. And this was where the real Maria stood late one morning in 1941, hands holstered on her hips, watching a pigeon autograph the windshield of her boss's new convertible. She'd like to buy that bird a drink.
"It's a beautiful day out, Art," Maria said. "You should really come have a look."
"I have," Artie said. "It made me want to jump."
Artie wasn't known for his joie de vivre, but he usually didn't fantasize about ending it all this close to lunch. Maria wondered if the Senate Investigation into Motion Picture War Propaganda was giving him agita, but no-the crisis at hand was on his head. His bald spot had finally grown too large for his toupee to conceal.
Six other black toupees were shellacked atop wooden mannequin heads on the shelf behind his desk, where a more successful producer might display his Oscars. They were conversation starters. As in, Artie began conversations with new employees by telling them the toupees were the scalps of their predecessors.
As far as Maria could tell, the six hairpieces were the same indistinguishable model and style, but Artie had become convinced that each one crackled with the karmic energy of the hair's original head, unrealized and awaiting release, like a static charge smuggled in a fingertip. Thus, he'd named his toupees after their personalities: The Heavyweight, The Casanova, The Optimist, The Edison, The Odysseus, and The Mephistopheles. Artie had never felt more at home in his adoptive country than when he learned the Founding Fathers had all worn toupees, even that showboat John Hancock. The only one who hadn't was Benjamin Franklin. And look how he turned out: a syphilitic Francophile who got his jollies flying kites in the rain.
"Maybe the toupee shrunk," he said, still hoping for a miracle.
"I think you'll need one with more coverage, Art."
"That's the second time this year. Christ, when will it end?"
"Life's nasty and brutish but at least it's short."
"Yeah? I'm not so optimistic."
Artie didn't believe in aging gracefully. He didn't believe in aging at all. At fifty-three, he maintained the same exercise regime that had made him a promising semi-professional boxer before a shattered wrist forced him into the only other business to reward his brand of controlled aggression. (He still kept a speedbag mounted to his office wall and liked to pummel it while in meetings with unaccommodating agents.) Sure, maybe he lost a step; maybe his knees sounded like a pair of maracas when he climbed stairs; maybe the boys in the mailroom let him win when he challenged them to arm-wrestling matches-but he wasn't getting old.
Or so Maria imagined Artie telling himself. In truth, she'd begun to worry about him. In four days, he would sit at a witness table on Capitol Hill, where he would testify alongside the heads of Warner Bros, MGM, Twentieth Century–Fox, and Paramount. It was shaping into a pivotal confrontation between campaigners for free speech and crusaders for government censorship. But as far as Maria could tell, Artie was more preoccupied with his toupee than his opening statement.
On the topic of censorship, he said, "Have you heard back from Joe Breen?"
"Earlier this morning."
"And? Will he approve the script for Devil's Bargain?"
Maria said nothing.
"I'm going to pull the rest of my hair out, aren't I?"
"I'm afraid so," she admitted.
Maria had started working at Mercury a decade earlier, rising from the typing pool to the front office. At the age of twenty-eight, she was an associate producer and Artie's deputy, a job that demanded the talents of a general, diplomat, hostage negotiator, and hairdresser. Among her duties was getting every Mercury picture blessed by the puritans and spoilsports who upheld the moral standards of movies at the Production Code Administration. The grand inquisitor over there was Joseph Breen, a bluenose so distraughtfully Catholic he'd once bowdlerized a Jesus biopic for sticking too close to the source material; apparently, a foreign-born Jew advocating redistribution smacked of Bolshevism to Breen. Committed to making pictures gratuitously inoffensive, Breen withheld Production ...
1
When you entered the executive offices of Mercury Pictures International, you would first see a scale model of the studio itself. Artie Feldman, co-founder and head of production, installed it in the lobby to distract skittish investors from second thoughts. Complete with back lot, sound stages, and facilities buildings, the miniature was a faithful replica of the ten-acre studio in which it sat. Maria Lagana, as rendered by the miniaturist, was a tiny, featureless figure looking out Artie's office window. And this was where the real Maria stood late one morning in 1941, hands holstered on her hips, watching a pigeon autograph the windshield of her boss's new convertible. She'd like to buy that bird a drink.
"It's a beautiful day out, Art," Maria said. "You should really come have a look."
"I have," Artie said. "It made me want to jump."
Artie wasn't known for his joie de vivre, but he usually didn't fantasize about ending it all this close to lunch. Maria wondered if the Senate Investigation into Motion Picture War Propaganda was giving him agita, but no-the crisis at hand was on his head. His bald spot had finally grown too large for his toupee to conceal.
Six other black toupees were shellacked atop wooden mannequin heads on the shelf behind his desk, where a more successful producer might display his Oscars. They were conversation starters. As in, Artie began conversations with new employees by telling them the toupees were the scalps of their predecessors.
As far as Maria could tell, the six hairpieces were the same indistinguishable model and style, but Artie had become convinced that each one crackled with the karmic energy of the hair's original head, unrealized and awaiting release, like a static charge smuggled in a fingertip. Thus, he'd named his toupees after their personalities: The Heavyweight, The Casanova, The Optimist, The Edison, The Odysseus, and The Mephistopheles. Artie had never felt more at home in his adoptive country than when he learned the Founding Fathers had all worn toupees, even that showboat John Hancock. The only one who hadn't was Benjamin Franklin. And look how he turned out: a syphilitic Francophile who got his jollies flying kites in the rain.
"Maybe the toupee shrunk," he said, still hoping for a miracle.
"I think you'll need one with more coverage, Art."
"That's the second time this year. Christ, when will it end?"
"Life's nasty and brutish but at least it's short."
"Yeah? I'm not so optimistic."
Artie didn't believe in aging gracefully. He didn't believe in aging at all. At fifty-three, he maintained the same exercise regime that had made him a promising semi-professional boxer before a shattered wrist forced him into the only other business to reward his brand of controlled aggression. (He still kept a speedbag mounted to his office wall and liked to pummel it while in meetings with unaccommodating agents.) Sure, maybe he lost a step; maybe his knees sounded like a pair of maracas when he climbed stairs; maybe the boys in the mailroom let him win when he challenged them to arm-wrestling matches-but he wasn't getting old.
Or so Maria imagined Artie telling himself. In truth, she'd begun to worry about him. In four days, he would sit at a witness table on Capitol Hill, where he would testify alongside the heads of Warner Bros, MGM, Twentieth Century–Fox, and Paramount. It was shaping into a pivotal confrontation between campaigners for free speech and crusaders for government censorship. But as far as Maria could tell, Artie was more preoccupied with his toupee than his opening statement.
On the topic of censorship, he said, "Have you heard back from Joe Breen?"
"Earlier this morning."
"And? Will he approve the script for Devil's Bargain?"
Maria said nothing.
"I'm going to pull the rest of my hair out, aren't I?"
"I'm afraid so," she admitted.
Maria had started working at Mercury a decade earlier, rising from the typing pool to the front office. At the age of twenty-eight, she was an associate producer and Artie's deputy, a job that demanded the talents of a general, diplomat, hostage negotiator, and hairdresser. Among her duties was getting every Mercury picture blessed by the puritans and spoilsports who upheld the moral standards of movies at the Production Code Administration. The grand inquisitor over there was Joseph Breen, a bluenose so distraughtfully Catholic he'd once bowdlerized a Jesus biopic for sticking too close to the source material; apparently, a foreign-born Jew advocating redistribution smacked of Bolshevism to Breen. Committed to making pictures gratuitously inoffensive, Breen withheld Production ...
