Joseph Kanon’s fifth novel, Stardust, like his first four, takes place in the 1940s.
Why did you decide to set Stardust in 1945 Hollywood?
I find the whole postwar setting fascinating. Unlike James Ellroy or Raymond Chandler, who write about a provincial town taken over by criminal elements, this book is about workaday Hollywood when it was at the top of its game. In 1946, more Americans went to the movies than would ever go again. The obsession with celebrity was much more familial. Separating studios from distribution chains and the rise of television had dramatic negative effects. The McCarthy hearings were a major element in the decline—the HUAC attack on Hollywood was shocking; the actors and moviemakers had been so adulated and considered patriots just a short time before. Ultimately, Hollywood wanted to get along and adopted the infamous blacklist.
Is today really different from the postwar era?
We’re all so self-obsessed that we like to think that everything that happens to us is a seminal moment, but that’s not necessarily true. When the first atomic bomb exploded and the horrors of the Holocaust were revealed, a whole moral universe was thrown up in the air and had to be questioned. Decisions that would have an effect for decades were made by ordinary people who had them thrust upon them. I’m not nostalgic for 1945, which was a terrible time for many people, but it was very interesting to research and write about.
How do you handle using nonfictional characters?
I had very mixed feelings about using real people; you don’t want to do any damage or be exploitative, or make obvious mistakes about the people you write about. It interrupts the reading experience. I use Paulette Goddard in Stardust, a name that I know, but that young people might not. I chose Paulette because the fact that she’s not well-known now makes a comment about the evanescence of stardom, and because she was married to Charlie Chaplin, who became one of the real victims of the Hollywood witch hunt. She pushes a lot of the interesting points in the book.
Does your background in publishing make writing fiction easier?
People have said to me, oh, this is very easy for you, because you worked in publishing, but it’s really a very different skill set. Once you’re facing the blank piece of paper, you’re just like everyone else in that situation. What you want to do is just let the publisher publish and stay out of it as best you can.
