Artistic Differences

Flip humor and pitch-perfect dialogue power TV writer-producer Hauck's breezy first novel, an insider's look at Hollywood that reads like the godawful truth. Narrated by a fictional TV writer-producer named Jimmy Hoy, this jaded tale follows the star-making process from casting to filming. Hoy and his partner, Neil Stein, create a comedy series for the ``CBN'' network and recruit blond, narcissistic Geneva Holloway to be its star. Geneva proceeds to malign Hoy and Stein, indirectly cause a hairdresser's suicide and throw hissy fits on the set when she fails to get her way. It's slightly disappointing that Hoy and Stein are only peripherally responsible for Geneva's comeuppance, and crueler still that a fate far worse than the loss of a hit series awaits the insufferable prima donna. With its grand finale, the book loses some momentum: by allowing grievous physical harm to come to Geneva, Hauck unkindly startles readers back into the real world that this otherwise glib, hyperbolic novel had until then permitted them to escape. It also serves as a reminder that the key women here are all shrews, airheads or both--though, to be fair, plenty of the men are jerks too. Faults notwithstanding, this Tinseltown tale's ample hilarity makes it a shoo-in for any summer reading list. (June)