A Graveyard For Lunatics: Another Tale of Two Cities [Paperback]

Hollywood, Halloween night, 1954. At a midnight party in a graveyard adjacent to the studio where he works, the sci-fi screenwriter/narrator glimpses the dangling papier-mache corpse (or real body?) of a film magnate presumed killed exactly 20 years earlier. Then a prop man (or his effigy) is hanged, or else is on the run, and another studio hand is murdered. A Beast is loose, attempting to instill panic on the set, perhaps to cover up what really happened two decades ago. Bradbury eventually ties up the loose ends in a loopy funhouse of a novel peopled with a monocled, imperious Austrian-Chinese director; Lenin's ex-makeup man, from the Kremlin; a gaunt, sermonizing actor named Jesus Christ; a feisty ex-movie queen who demands that "J.C." bless her; and other oddballs. Madness, blackmail, murder and mayhem spell tricks and treats as Bradbury toes the fine line between reality and illusion.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

YA-- A multilevel story about a man for whom the movies have been a childhood obsession, an adult vocation, and ultimately a horrible, mysterious collision of past and present. Set in a Hollywood film studio back lot, the book presents an interweaving of real film stars of the past and of current productions. Vivid descriptions of the studio world and the real world take readers on a fascinating tour of reality and illusion, both superbly drawn. Film buffs will revel in the inside atmosphere, and mystery fans will enjoy the complicated kaleidoscopic plot. Once again, Bradbury combines the real and the imaginary in a fascinating tale. --Peggy Hecklinger, R. E. Lee High School, Springfield, VA
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Bradbury's richly lyrical debut novel Something Wicked This Way Comes (S. & S., 1963) was an expansion of his early short story "Black Ferris." This time he employs elements from "Tyrannosaurus Rex" (anthologized in The Machineries of Joy , LJ 1/1/64) in composing a loose mystery yarn set in 1950s Hollywood. While working as a screenwriter for a major studio, the unnamed narrator (introduced in Death Is a Lonely Business, LJ 3/15/85) becomes embroiled in a bizarre scandal surrounding the alleged death of the studio's founder 20 years earlier. Charismatic heroes and diabolical villains people a surrealistic landscape which only Bradbury could render believable. An irresistible tale which will be in demand, since it's only Bradbury's second novel since 1963. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 3/15/90.
- Mark Anni chiarico, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Halloween Night, 1954.  A young, film-obsessed scriptwriter has just been hired at one of the great studios.  An anonymous investigation leads from the giant Maximus Films backlot to an eerie graveyard separated from the studio by a single wall.  There he makes a terrifying discovery that thrusts him into a maelstrom of intrigue and mystery -- and into the dizzy exhilaration of the movie industry at the height of its glittering power.

The recipient of a National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters and a National Medal of Arts, Ray Bradbury is one of the most celebrated fi ction writers of our time. Among his best-known works are Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. Mr. Bradbury lives in Los Angeles.