The Age of Dreaming

by Nina Revoyr

Overview

The Age of Dreaming explores the history of Los Angeles, the heady beginnings of the movie industry, and the interplay of race and celebrity.

“Rare indeed is a novel this deeply pleasurable and significant.” —Booklist, Starred Review

“[Nina Revoyr is] an empathetic chronicler of the dispossessed outsider in LA.” —Los Angeles Times

Jun Nakayama was a silent film star in the early days of Hollywood, but by 1964, he finds himself living in complete obscurity—until a young writer, Nick Bellinger, tracks him down for an interview. When Bellinger reveals that he has written a screenplay with Nakayama in mind, Jun is intrigued by the possibility of returning to the big screen. But he begins to worry that someone might delve too deeply into the past, and uncover the events that led to the abrupt end of his career in 1922. These events include the changing social and racial tides in California—and the unsolved murder of his favorite director, Ashley Bennett Tyler.

The Age of Dreaming explores the history of Los Angeles, the heady beginnings of the movie industry, and the interplay of race and celebrity. It is part historical novel, part murder mystery, and part unrequited love story—all told through the voice of a forgotten star who must gradually come to terms with his past.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781933354460
Publisher:	Akashic Books, Ltd.
Publication date:	04/01/2008
Pages:	330
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

NINA REVOYR is the author of six novels, including A Student of History; Lost Canyon; The Age of Dreaming, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Southland, a Los Angeles Times bestseller and “Best Book” of 2003; The Necessary Hunger; and Wingshooters, which won an Indie Booksellers Choice Award and was selected by O, The Oprah Magazine as one of “10 Titles to Pick Up Now.” Revoyr lives and works in the Los Angeles area.

Editorial Reviews

"Reminiscent of Paul Auster’s The Book of Illusions in its concoction of spurious Hollywood history and its star’s filmography, but Revoyr is a more ingenuous writer than Auster, if not as daring and spectacular."

San Francisco Chronicle

"With Nabokov-worthy sentences, characters so real our hearts begin to beat with theirs, and a story as deeply mysterious and riveting as any the Hollywood it conjures up could have created, The Age of Dreaming is a masterpiece of the sort that doesn’t just seduce the reader—it leaves you transformed. Possessed of stunning vision and an elegance all her own, Nina Revoyr deserves to be counted among the top ranks of novelists at work today. Film lovers—and lovers of literature—will willingly lose themselves in this haunting, heartfelt epic of race, genius, passion, memory, and a Hollywood few have ever seen before."

Jerry Stahl

In her cunning follow-up to Southland, Revoyr returns to L.A., this time to when Sunset Boulevard was "just a dirt road" and Jun Nakayama was a famous silent film star. Prompted by a journalist's visit in 1964, 42 years after he left the screen for good, Jun revisits his youth in Japan, his discovery at L.A.'s Little Tokyo Theater, his rise to stardom and the scandalous events that led to his abrupt retreat from public life. Mixing real people with fictional characters like principled Japanese actress Hanako Minatoya, troubled starlet Elizabeth Banks (not the one in Seabiscuit), ingénue Nora Minton Niles and dashing director Ashley Bennett Tyler, Revoyr creates a vibrant portrait of a time when the film studio was "a place of serious work." As Jun reveals the secrets he has kept for decades, he uncovers new twists in his own history and comes to terms with other painful experiences he has repressed, namely his loneliness and the effects of the anti-Japanese racism he mistakenly believed he could overcome by being "as agreeable-and American-as possible." The occasional awkward transition between present and past notwithstanding, Revoyr beautifully invokes Jun's self-deceptions and his growing self-awareness. It's an enormously satisfying novel. (Apr.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Publishers Weekly

Tokyo-born Revoyr's third novel (after the award-winning Southland) tells a deceptively simple story about the first days of Hollywood. Through the unfolding recollections of Jun Nakayama, a Japanese immigrant-turned-A-list actor, it zooms in on the sexism and anti-Asian bigotry of the early 20th century. It is 1964, and a zealous reporter tracks down the now-retired 73-year-old Nakayama for an article he's writing. At first, Nakayama is reluctant to be interviewed, but he ultimately can't resist the spotlight. Still, considering that his acting career ended in 1922, he finds the journalist's interest baffling. As they talk, the writer's queries send Nakayama on a quest that uncovers long-buried secrets. The unsolved murder of his favorite director, coupled with sexual peccadilloes, police payoffs, and massive cover-ups, are woven into a tale showcasing human foibles and heroism. In the end, Nakayama discovers what it means to take personal responsibility and stand up for what's right. Fast-moving, riveting, unpredictable, and profound; highly recommended for all fiction collections.
—Eleanor J. Bader

Library Journal

Aging Japanese actor, a former silent-screen sex symbol, is offered a second chance at notoriety. Revoyr's third novel (Southland, 2003, etc.) is loosely based on a scandal of Hollywood's silent era. It's 1964, and Jun Nakayama, 73, is content to dwell in prosperous obscurity, monitoring his real-estate investments and hiking the Hollywood Hills. But troubling memories of his days as a controversial movie star resurface when journalist Nick Bellinger interviews Jun about his flaming youth and leading ladies, including siren Elizabeth Banks and Nora Niles, an ingenue dominated by a harridan of a stage mother. This being Los Angeles, Nick is shopping a screenplay with a star turn for Jun-as an elderly Japanese man who is mistaken for a former war criminal by his rural California neighbors. Although excited by the prospect of working again, Jun is loath to revisit the circumstances that prematurely curtailed his career in 1922. Seamlessly interwoven flashbacks detail Jun's ascension to stardom despite anti-Japanese prejudice. Jun's excitement almost overwhelms a nagging suspicion that a comeback might engender a deeper inquiry into Jun's role in one of early Hollywood's most lurid unsolved mysteries. Ashley Tyler, a British director, was found murdered in his bungalow. There are three suspects: Elizabeth and Nora, who each had romantic designs on Ashley, and Jun, Ashley's rival for Elizabeth. All three are cleared, but Elizabeth drinks herself to death and Nora is forever consigned to her mother's less than tender mercies. But the murder isn't the only reason Jun is publicity shy. He harbors a guilty secret, which the hoopla surrounding a movie release will expose. Allowing a first-personnarrator to withhold the truth until the climactic moment is a neat trick, one handily accomplished mostly through Jun's convincing voice, which Revoyr conveys in lucid, precise and period-appropriate prose. Although the pace lags in sections-notably a cross-country train tour which seems to occur in real time-all in all this is a pulse-quickening, deliciously ironic serving of Hollywood noir.

Kirkus Reviews