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LIFE GOES TO THE MOVIES- Peter Selgin
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When Vietnam-veteran-turned-film-maker Dwaine Fitzgibbon (“D for Death, W for War, A for Anarchy, I for Insane, N for Nightmare, and E for the End of the World”) takes Nigel DePoli under his wing to teach him about movies and life, Nigel thinks he’s found the perfect antidote to his small-town, immigrant child’s upbringing. But Dwaine is arguably insane, and the greatest movie they’ll ever collaborate on is the one he produces in Nigel’s gullible, hero-addled mind. Their erotically tinged friendship is the subject of what one sly reader has called an “anti-homophobic” novel, a bond strengthened but also tested by their mutual love for Veronica “Venus” Dwiggins, a beautiful albino costume designer. With Dwaine less and less able or willing to distinguish between reality and cinema, Nigel must choose between sanity and loyalty. The story climaxes with Nigel’s gambit to rescue Dwaine from the psychiatric ward where he has taken flight, a scheme involving a considerable budget, a cast and crew of hospitalized V-vets, and the world’s most famous soft-drink.
“Wonderfully inventive and elegantly crafted, Life Goes to the Movies brims with exuberance and wit. Both a celebration and something of an elegy for the golden age of Hollywood, this novel reeled me in with its propulsive energy and won me over before I had finished chapter one.”
—Frederick Reiken, author of The Lost Legends of New Jersey
"Love, madness and the movies come together in the dazzling, intoxicating story of a young man’s obsessive friendship with a Vietnam vet.”
—Anne Landsman, author of The Rowing Lesson
“ Life Goes to the Movies is the irresistible account of a passionate friendship between two young men, both star-struck by art. Selgin’s vivid account of New York in the 1970s, his richly complex characters, his encyclopedic knowledge of film and his sense of how small the gap is between good luck and bad make this an utterly absorbing novel. A wonderful read.”
—Margot Livesey, author of The House on Fortune Street
“Peter Selgin’s novel is sheer delight—a delicious tale of love, and of America’s ongoing love affair with movies. It is offbeat, compelling, and filled with memorable tales told by a splendid storyteller. Anyone who loves movies—or would love to make a movie!—will love Life Goes to the Movies.” —Jay Neugeboren, author of 1940 and Imagining Robert
“Peter Selgin fulfills the promise of Drowning Lessons, his fearless first book of stories, in this first novel, with its layers haunted with film lore and by its car-accident-in-progress protagonist. Each sentence dips into light to bear up surprising scenes.”
—Donald Newlove, author of The Painter Gabriel
“With Life Goes To The Movies, Peter Selgin aims far higher than most of us poor storytellers ever dare. From beginning to end, I kept imagining the funnels of smoke that surely must have risen from his keyboard as he wrote this potent, superbly crafted, and wonderfully ambitious novel.”
—Donald Ray Pollock, author of Knockemstiff
| Peter Selgin’s first book of short stories, Drowning Lessons (University of Georgia Press, 2008) won the Flannery O’Connor Award. His book on writing, By Cunning & Craft: Sound Advice and Practical Wisdom for Fiction Writers, was published by Writer’s Digest Books. His stories and essays have appeared in dozens of publications, including Salon, The Sun, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, Missouri Review, Boulevard, Poets & Writers, Colorado Review, and in the anthologies Our Roots Are Deep With Passion (Other Books, 2006), Writing Fiction (Bloomsbury, 2005), and Best American Essays 2006. He edits the journal Alimentum: The Literature of Food, and leads an annual writing workshop in Vitorchiano, Italy. He lives in Spuyten Duyvil, New York. |
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