Mit Out Sound

When Emily Bennett hears about a never-finished movie starring John Wayne and James Dean, it almost feels like fate to run into celebrity impersonators of each actor. Maybe she could bring that movie to life, using the new technology of the 1970s and clever tricks to disguise from the audience that the people they see on the screen are not actually Wayne and Dean. Maybe a legend can come to fruition.

What follows is not a story on the epic scale of some Hollywood blockbusters (past or present) but a story which can be best told in a book. Lenz delves deep into the interior lives of his three protagonists, bringing out their humanity even as they try to tell a larger-than-life story. The book is a deeply sympathetic one, and deeply enjoyable because of it.

Part of this sympathy shows in Lenz’s keen eye for human interactions. While the interplay between Emily and the impersonators (Jimmy Riley and Tom Manfredo) becomes a strange sort of love triangle, it is far more complex than the average “boys pursue girl” story so often thrown into a plot for the sake of drama. It is deeply interwoven not only into the narrative but also into the characters themselves. At the same time, it is surprisingly subtle. The story is, at its heart, the story of the legendary movie.

That doesn’t mean the book is only a fictional “Making Of” of a fictional movie. If nothing else, the exquisitely done love triangle and the deeply human characters make it more. Beyond those, though, themes appear. There are fraught familial relationships and attempts to hold onto power, secrets from the past and lingering guilt, whether or not it is deserved. At times, especially once the filming begins, the book feels like a Western captured on the page and does so successfully, catching a cinematic feeling without losing the beauty of the prose.

I recommend this book highly, to anyone who enjoys stories with deeply human elements and conflicts that arise naturally. Of course, it will also interest anyone who is interested in Hollywood of the 1970s and who likes to imagine that there might actually be lost movies like this, just waiting for their moment of discovery and for the right talent to bring them to life. I was intrigued from the start of this book all the way to the end, and I know other readers will be as well.