My Hollywood

A wonderfully provocative and appealing novel, from the much-loved author of "Anywhere But Here", her first in ten years. It tells the story of two women whose lives entwine and unfold behind the glittery surface of Hollywood. Claire, a composer and a new mother, comes to LA so her husband can follow his passion for writing television comedy. Suddenly the marriageoonce a genuine 50/50 arrangementochanges, with Paul working long hours and Claire left at home with a baby, William, whom she adores but has no idea how to care for. Lola, a fifty-two-year-old mother of five who is working in America to pay for her own children's higher education back in the Philippines, becomes their nanny. Lola stabilizes the rocky household and soon other parents try to lure her away. What she sacrifices to stay with Claire and 'Williamo' remains her own closely guarded secret. In a novel at turns satirical and heartbreaking, where mothers' modern ideas are given practical overhauls by nannies, we meet Lola's vast network of fellow caregivers, each with her own story to tell. We see the upstairs competition for the best nanny and the downstairs competition for the best deal, and are forced to ask whether it is possible to buy love for our children and what that transaction costs us all. We look into two contemporary marriagesoone in America and one in the Philippinesoand witness their endangerment, despite the best of intentions. "My Hollywood" is a tender, witty, and resonant novel that provides the profound pleasures readers have come to expect from Mona Simpson, here writing at the height of her powers.

About the Author :
Mona Simpson is the author of Anywhere But Here, The Lost Father, A Regular Guy, and Off Keck Road, which was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and won the Heartland Prize of the Chicago Tribune. She lives in Santa Monica, California.

Review :
"Beautifully realized. . . . One of the most insightful books in years about contemporary American life." --"San Francisco Chronicle " " " "Simpson works habitual magic, showing how love travels, ownerless and unbidden." --"The New York Times Book Review " " ""Heart-wrenching. . . . This is a domestic novel and a highly political one." --"Time " " " "Simpson is a virtuoso. . . . Expansive and original." --"The Boston Globe " " " "[A] wise . . . haunting novel." --"People" "A double-Dutch game of masterful writing. . . . Won't easily fade from anyone's mind." --"Entertainment Weekly" "In Mona Simpson's new novel about a modern marriage and its discontents, the saga of its Filipina domestic sketches a new variation on the American dream. . . . An intimate, ironic tale." --"Elle " "Wondrous work. . . . Painfully real and moving and funny." --"The Minneapolis Star-Tribune " "This is classic Simpson. . . . The most serious and potent truths are told." --"O, The Oprah Magazine " "An absorbing novel. . . . With her incisive portrayal of the frustrations felt by working parents, "My Hollywood" could easily be "Our Country."" --"The Washington Post Book World" "It takes a very subtle, sophisticated and confident writer to make our most common problems come off as unique on the page as they feel at 3 in the morning. If anyone can do it, Mona Simpson can. And does. But there's more." --"Los Angeles Times " "Simpson's massive gifts--for unflinching precision, for artful indirection and for the deft unfurling of imagery--are on vivid display in "My Hollywood," a book that carries us down deep, into the darkness of two distinct worlds, and lights them up, finding all the comedy in the ways they are the same world, and all the tragedy in the unbridgeable distance between them." --Michael Chabon, author of "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay " "Simpson's novel shows the intricacies and inequit "Simpson works her habitual magic, showing how love travels, ownerless and unbidden, among children who need adults, and adults who need children. 'Children, they are dependent for their life, ' Lola observed, back in Santa Monica. But so are adults. Sitting with her friends, drinking 'nonfat lattes, ice blendeds, a dozen small consolations, ' Claire asks, 'For what, exactly, were mothers always being consoled?' Simpson gently suggests an answer: for their fear of failing in their responsibilities, to their children and themselves, the extent of which they'll only know when their children grow up and tell them what they were." --Liesl Schillinger, "The""New York Times Book Review" "Simpson's novel shows the intricacies and inequities of domestic politics . . . "My Hollywood" is a smart, topical, absorbing novel that explores the macro economy, the micro economy and the world of work, both inside and outside the home. Mona Simpson writes adroitly about domestic matters, and sheo