Sarah Lai, once a rising star as a producer in the film industry, is now teaching screenwriting at a community college. When she’s approached by Thom, a journalist for the New York Times, wanting to know what happened during the filming of her last project, she wonders if she should talk about what happened to end her career. Finally, the decides to tell the story. In recounting the events she has to face her own demons as well at the degrading atmosphere on the set.
The book is Sarah telling her story interspersed with short interviews with other people. This is an interesting way to tell about an incident that affected Sarah so deeply. Her family were immigrants from China, and she felt lucky to land a job in the film industry which she loved. She was also very good at it and quickly rose to assistant producer on a major project for the small independent company she worked for. Things went well until Hugo North, a wealthy producer, took over the company and moved the production to Hollywood. This is the point that Sarah’s career goes awry and her desire for vengeance sprouts.
This is a very emotional story. The writer pulls you in to Sarah’s feelings and does a good job of making you understand the depths of her hurt. My only problem with the presentation is that the serial quality of Sarah telling her story at length gets a bit tiring. However, the book is a whole is well done and the topic is well worth exploring.
I received this book from Atria for this review.
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