IF I CLOSE MY EYES

In Fama’s novel, life-threatening gun violence and the media coverage that follows leads to an unlikely friendship between two Hollywood hopefuls.

Jesse Shore is the 19-year-old son of a deceased screenwriter mother, Patricia Shore, who’s known for writing the award-winning TV series Until I See Palm Trees Again, and a father, Bernie Shore, who used to ply the same trade. The teen views Hollywood with a critical eye but is still attracted by its trappings, and he’s vowed to follow in his mother’s footsteps and “commit to her legacy” by becoming a successful writer of screenplays himself. Jesse lives in Los Angeles with his uncle, Lee, who also works in the industry and wants to give his nephew a helping hand. Lee enters him in a lottery that results in him winning a signed copy of Kim Kardashian’s book of selfies. At the New York City book signing he attends, a murderous fan fires a gun into the crowd and wounds Jesse and 29-year-old starlet Marsy-Rose Arenas. During his recovery, Jesse follows Arenas’ postings on social media, and after she responds to his Twitter message, he returns to LA and they spend the next year together; along the way, he becomes infatuated with her. Unfortunately, the relationship plunges him back into “bad behaviors he’d developed in the big shadow of his mother’s passing.” Fama portrays Jesse as a Holden Caulfield–like character and delivers clever metaphors from the close third-person perspective of his protagonist: “New York City was its best at night, when it turned on all the lights; a sequined gown draped over a chorus of idle footsteps.” Such moments, paired with the author’s depiction of Jesse’s awkward self-awareness and vulnerability, are likely to inspire reader empathy. The LA milieu includes interactions with real-life celebrity figures, such as musician Marilyn Manson, media star Ryan Seacrest, and filmmaker Judd Apatow, while also illuminating a modern-day cult of celebrity and the ways that aspiring writers navigate the movie world.

A thoughtful and sometimes vivid tale of a young screenwriter and his celebrity crush.