In the story's second strand, in present-day Hollywood, Claire Silver is working as an assistant to legendary but fading film producer Michael Deane. Claire spends her days listening to desperate pitches from a bunch of no-hopers. The latest one, Shane Wheeler, is heading her way with an impractical movie concept about cannibalism. But Claire is about to receive another, more unexpected visitor - a silver-haired Italian man who hopes to track down the beautiful actress he last set eyes on 50 years ago.
The plot of Beautiful Ruins doesn't bear up to too much scrutiny. At times the story verges on slapstick or descends towards French farce. There is a cache of stock characters and nothing unexpected about any of the satire, but none of that matters because this book is just so much fun.
I loved the slick, cinematic writing - particularly a description of Los Angeles waking for the day. This is a story about big, crazy dreams and yes, it is mostly implausible, but also romantic, thoughtful and wry, touching and humorous - plus Richard Burton has a walk-on part that is ridiculous but very funny.
Beautiful Ruins took US writer Walter 15 years to write and I can understand why. It's a novel that's ambitious in scope with multiple themes, lots of layers and many characters. The story jumps about in time and forays into fragments of memoirs, crazed movie pitches and parts of plays. Despite that, this is a delicious book to relax with; not a dense or challenging read. If you're looking for a novel pitched somewhere between a chick-lit blockbuster and literary fiction, Beautiful Ruins might just might be it.
There are plenty of other novels around about the shallowness of Hollywood, the hopelessness of love and yes, even about Italy. But none quite like this one.
