From the author of the acclaimed CARTER BEATS THE DEVIL comes a grand entertainment with the brilliantly realized figure of Charlie Chaplin at its centre: a novel at once cinematic and intimate, thrilling and darkly comic, which dramatizes the moment when American capitalism, a world at war, and the emerging mecca of Hollywood intersect to spawn an enduring culture of celebrity. SUNNYSIDE follows three overlapping fortunes: Leland Wheeler, son of the last (and worst) Wild West star, as he heads to the battlefields of France; snobbish Hugo Black, drafted to fight in Russia under the British general, Edmund Ironside; and Chaplin himself, contending with studio moguls, accusations of cowardice, his unchecked heart and, most menacing of all, his mother, as he pursues the goal of making a movie 'as good as he was'. With a cast of enthralling characters both historical and fictional, SUNNYSIDE is a heart-rending, spellbinding novel about dreams, ambition and the dawn of the modern age.
- ISBN10 0307270688
- ISBN13 9780307270689
- Publish Date 5 May 2009 (first published 1 January 2009)
- Publish Status Remaindered
- Out of Print 20 May 2017
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Alfred A. Knopf
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 559
- Language English