Stellify (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781915079046)

In Stellify, stories of love, abuse, and the film industry weave and intertwine in fragments, like an Altman montage, or Lydia Davis flash that coalesces into a Jennifer Egan-style interlinked narrative. An actor's breakdown, instigated by an Elephant Man prosthetic, leads to a love affair with a Syrian screenwriter. As a teenage actress wends a painful route toward a kind of stardom, she connects with a British stuntman, seeking a new life and a new self in Hollywood. Moments of tenderness, disappointment, and neglect form around a Korean film festival. As these and other pieces develop, the storylines weave, creating a novel in fragments, and a constellation of the ways in which we love and hurt each other, set against the abusive superstructure of the film industry.