Tap cover to enlarge

The Player

Published
May 1989
Main Genre
General Fiction General Fiction
Rating

About This Book

The "shrewd, entertainingly dark Hollywood novel" that inspired the award-winning Robert Altman film (The New York Times Book Review).

 


Hollywood insider Michael Tolkin perfectly skewers the movie-making business through the mind of Griffin Mill, senior vice president of production at a major Hollywood studio. Ruthlessly ambitious, Mill is driven to control the levers of America's dream-making machinery. He listens to writers pitch him stories all day, sitting in judgment of their fantasies, their lives. But now one writer whose pitch he responded to so glibly is sending him mortally threatening postcards.


 


Squeezed between the threat to his life and the threat to his job, Mill's deliberate and horrifying response spins him into a nightmare. Then he meets the sad and beautiful June Mercator and his obsession for her threatens to destroy them both.


 


"One of the most wounding and satirical of all Hollywood exposes." —Los Angeles Times

 


"In its wry, acerbic description of life behind the studio gates Tolkin's book recalls F. Scott Fitzgerald . . . and the vengeful comedy of Nathaniel West's The Day of the Locust." —The Philadelphia Inquirer

Genres & Themes

Buy This Book

Formats & Editions

Browse the different covers, formats, and publication history for this title.

Paperback

Paperback edition cover
Paperback
First Edition May 1989 Vintage ISBN 0679722548
Buy
Paperback edition cover
Paperback
Jun 1992 Vintage ISBN 0394239245
Buy
Paperback edition cover
Trade Paperback
Apr 1997 Grove Press ISBN 0802135137
Buy

Hardcover

Hardcover edition cover
Hardcover
Jun 1988 Grove Press ISBN 0871132281
Buy

eBook

eBook edition cover
eBook
Dec 2007 Grove Press ISBN 1555847471
Buy
eBook edition cover
eBook
Dec 2007 Grove Press ISBN B00505UPI2
Buy

Audio

Audio edition cover
Audio Cassette
May 1992 Random House Audio ISBN 0679418490
Buy
Audio edition cover
Audio Cassette
May 1993 Random House Audio ISBN 0679423451
Buy
Audio edition cover
Audible
Jul 2015 -- Not Selected ISBN B011E3DOW2
Buy