Is that a soundtrack I hear? My reading life this winter has somehow become a ticket to a film-ish book festival. I'm not talking book-to-film adaptations, but works in which movies and Hollywood play a prominent role.
The realization hit me while reading Patton Oswalt's wonderful Silver Screen Fiend: Learning About Life from an Addiction to Film, and was confirmed by Tara Ison's Reeling Through Life: How I Learned to Live, Love and Die at the Movies. "Movies have gotten under my skin, formed my perceptions, influenced the choices I've made," Ison writes. "I've learned how to live at the movies, fromthe movies; I am who I am because of movies, and, to some degree, all the other movie freaks out there are, too." As am I. This reminds me of something Molly Gloss said at an event last fall. Her latest novel, Falling from Horses, is the intriguing tale of a young Oregon ranch hand who goes to Hollywood in 1938 to find work as a stunt rider in cowboy movies. "Even kids who grew up on a ranch were influenced by cowboy movies," Gloss observed. "Bud wanted to be like the cowboy heroes he saw growing up in the movies."Videos