Description
Book SynopsisNew York, December 24. A stray bullet and Branka Svetidrva, who survived the snipers' gunfire in Sarajevo, is dead just days before she would have given birth. The father-to-be had never believed in love, until she had shown him the joys of a shared life. Grieving and contemplating the betrayal of hope that lurks beneath a city's glossy surface, he wanders the streets, until meeting a loving husband and wife, living by choice on the margins of society.
They listen to his story and tell their own, while in the background the television news reports on astronaut Stanislas Konchenko, who has just disconnected himself from his spacecraft in a bold statement about humanity that has captured the world's attention. Marc Séguin is a master when working with events of enormous impact, and wonderfully empathetic in his revelations about the human heart.
Hollywood is a tale full of fateful meetings and strange coincidences, and an exploration of those moments that stand against the hypocrisy of the American Dream, what many now consider an unattainable "made-in-Hollywood" ideal.
Trade Review“How can literary writers conjure events that give their work long-lasting effect? The answer in all cases is to create events of enormous impact. If an event is external, excavate its inner meaning. If a moment is internal, push it out the door and make it do something large, real, permanent, and hard to miss. Marc Séguin succeeds in spades.” —Donald Maass, author,
Writing 21st Century Fiction“
Hollywood by Marc Séguin: one of Quebec literature’s great works.” —Laurence Lebel, CISM 89.3 FM, on the original French-language edition
“Marc Séguin has just written a powerful book, a masterpiece that focuses on what kind of life we want to lead. The novel goes straight to the heart of the essential to move us closer to the core of another human being.” —
Critiques Libres“With this unlikely love story that draws knowingly on clichés, the author depicts an America living under a bell jar, convinced that the dramas seen on TV can prepare it for the real horror. A novel in which disenchantment is poetic and lucidity is our only hope of survival.” —Anne-Marie Genest, Librairie Pantoute
