City of Blows - by Tim Blake Nelson

Book Synopsis

"A travelogue of purgatory. Brutal, but minutely rendered..." --Guillermo del Toro

It's early 2020, and legendary producer Jacob Rosenthal is eager to make his next film, Coal, adapted from the bestselling novel by the celebrated writer Rex Patterson. The project--which takes on the controversial topic of race in America--is Jacob's envisioned magnum opus, and likely his swan song. He selects David Levit to direct, a major opportunity for the classically trained actor/director whose own films, while garnering critical acclaim, have not resulted in box office success. But the announcement of David's hiring doesn't sit well with a producer from David's past, Brad Shlansky, who channels the last remaining vestiges of his creativity into a revenge plot that could very well scupper the making of Coal, and ruin the lives of its producer and director in the process.

A sprawling, character-driven depiction of the modern film industry, City of Blows reaches back decades to the formative experiences of each of the novel's central figures to explore what first motivated them to become involved in the quixotic and often venal world of movie-making. Driven by their diverse backgrounds, each must navigate the same huckstering circus that puts films on screen.

Review Quotes

"...this novel's depictions of Hollywood machinations are of a higher caliber than those in any other literary work that's attempted to depict that world. City of Blows abounds in the economy and fluidity that accompanies true authority." --THE BROOKLYN RAIL

"City of Blows isn't about succeeding in Hollywood by any means necessary... Instead, it's about how easy it is to fail in Hollywood, and how you can't stop the bus without brakes from careering downhill." --The Bulwark

"An unflinchingly cynical take on Hollywood's machinations and the ways in which outsized egos compromise art." --The Washington Post

"Nelson could quit his day job tomorrow. And while that would be a loss to filmgoers, the literary world would gain something in this age of branding and algorithms: an unclassifiable and unsafe writer." --National Review

"Nelson knowingly works in the shadow of other classic Hollywood satires. But his model is less Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust or Michael Tolkin's The Player than it is Budd Schulberg's What Makes Sammy Run? His trio of protagonists are ambitious Jewish outsiders working angles on finding Hollywood success and risking the loss of significant parts of themselves in doing so." --Rain Taxi Review

"There's something sustaining in a story that shows how beautiful people can be just as petty--just as ugly--as the rest of us." --THE MILLIONS

"This hard-edged debut looks at the power, savvy, and ugliness that go into making movies...Nelson is a solid writer whose dialogue is smart, pacy, and pointed...An ambitious, acerbic, entertaining take on the film business." --KIRKUS, STARRED REVIEW

"The best, funniest, most incisive depiction of Hollywood's brute illogic since The Player, and the only one I can think of that so perfectly situates that illogic within the greater American power structures that have deformed us all. Tim Blake Nelson's City of Blows is phenomenal." --Matthew Specktor, author of American Dream Machine

City of Blows reveals the 'business of show business' for what it often truly is: a desperate, bareknuckle fight to assert identity and insist that, as Arthur Miller put it, 'Attention must be paid'.... The very best novels about the darker veins under the Hollywood dream are Day of the Locust, What Makes Sammy Run and Play It as It Lays.... City of Blows goes on the shelf right next to those classic bruisers." --Edward Norton

"Tim Blake Nelson's City of Blows is a biting exposé lifting the veil on the less glitzy side of the Hollywood movie-making machine. It's bitterly funny, cruelly accurate and a compelling read." --John Turturro

"Tim Blake Nelson's vivid characterizations in City of Blows so humorously, painfully and accurately depicts the savage world of Hollywood that it is too true to be satire. Anyone in show business will recognize people they know from the headlines or from their own experiences. And most poignantly, they will recognize themselves in the Hollywood playground of damaged people who desperately seek external validation. For a show-biz outsider, this powerful, and exquisitely written novel is a cautionary, existential primer on the ego-driven workings behind an entire mega-business." --Debbie Liebling, executive producer of PEN15 and South Park

About the Author

Tim Blake Nelson is an actor, filmmaker and playwright. He has appeared in over eighty feature films, working with directors that include the Coen brothers, Steven Spielberg, Terrence Malick, Ang Lee, Guillermo Del Toro, Tommy Lee Jones, Steven Soderbergh, and Nora Ephron. He has directed five films, four of which he wrote, all of which were released theatrically in the United States and internationally, garnering myriad awards. He has written and published three plays, each produced off Broadway in New York, most recently Socrates, which enjoyed a sold-out run through three extensions at the Public Theater in the spring of 2019.