A Life in Cinema

Introduction by Stephen King, Afterword by Tobe Hooper, Jacket and Interior Art by Clive BarkerA LIFE IN THE CINEMA is the first book from award-winning filmmaker Mick Garris. It is a collection of eight prickly tales and a screenplay that reach under the skin of real life and reel life to take you places you never realized you wanted to go. The title story, "A Life in the Cinema" and its sequel, "Starfucker", are set in the author's hometown of Hollywood, and provide a yellow-jaundiced look at a world you only thought was glamorous.As Stephen King, in his introduction, says: "Here is a real Hollywood insider writing about the real inside world of filmmaking: the good, the bad, and the cheesy. These stories are both erotic and cynical, but they are above all well and fiercely told-when he's yarning about the tarnished tinsel underbelly of the town he knows (and clearly loves) the best, Mick Garris writes like a combination of Robert Bloch and James Ellroy, hardboiled noir with a ghastly little prink of the devil's own pitchfork."Not all of the stories are Hollywood-based: Garris includes tales of a grandmother who is just as loving in death as she was in life, a geriatric trailer park with a randy secret, wistful and impossible love with a twist, the wrong kind of baby-love, and a deathly brush with fame. The book is capped with a screenplay by Garris, as well as "Chocolate", the story it's based on, providing, as King puts it, "a textbook seminar in the art and craft of adapting one's own work."So welcome to a dark side of Hollywood you've never seen before . . .

From Publishers Weekly

Readers with a taste for clever horror and kinky sex will devour this debut collection of eight randy, gross-out tales and one screenplay by filmmaker Garris. The director of Stephen King's movie Sleepwalkers and small-screen adaptations of The Shining and The Stand, Garris makes good use of his movie-making experience in the title story. A disillusioned horror film director purchases a deformed infant from her mother, then features the "monster" in his new film. The narrative, which is alternately comical, surreal and graphic, sets the tone for the tales that follow. In "Baby Shower," a man finds his septuagenarian parents center stage in a sexually overactive retirement colony, and "Forever Gramma" culminates in a retch-inducing act of necrophilia. "Starfucker" pokes fun at nostalgia for old Hollywood when its main character pays $100,000 for a sexual encounter with a resuscitated but crumbling Jean Harlow. "Flesh and Fantasy" is a kind of bonus; a screenplay based on one of the stories, "Chocolate," in which a man's mysterious psychic connection with a female stranger leads him to stalk and kill her. Although readers with delicate constitutions might want to steer clear of Garris's work, fans of scary movies and sci-fi fiction will relish his stomach-turning plot twists. Garris does not have Stephen King's sophistication, but he does create and sustain a compelling, colloquial narrative voice, with a witty, informed skewering of the film industry. (Dec.) Forecast: A limited edition with an introduction by Stephen King, an afterword by Tobe Hooper (director of the classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and illustrations (not seen by PW) by Clive Barker? This one will sell out fast. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Publisher

For a fuller description of the book, go to the Gauntlet Press website, gauntletpress.com. As with any book signed by STEPHEN KING, these will sell out quickly, so don't wait to place your order.

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