My Hollywood by Mona Simpson

A review by Abby Frucht

Mona Simpson's fifth novel bears many a resemblance to its sprawling predecessors, among them her celebrated debut Anywhere but Here (1986), about a girl and her self-absorbed mother making an impetuous cross-country drive.

Simpson's second novel, The Lost Father (1992), along with her third, A Regular Guy (1996), made similar use of an intentionally disorganized structure, allowing their protagonists to roam, digress, obsess, and repeat themselves while moving haplessly backward and forward along spiraling, tumultuous, and curiously suspenseful narratives.

The result was darkly charming. Readers, compelled to tag alongside the often irrational dreams, hopes, and delusions of Simpson's characters, were at once entertained and dismayed by their journeys.

A PEN/Faulkner Award nominee for her fourth novel, Off Keck Road (2000), and winner of a Whiting Award and an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Simpson has set her latest in parts of...

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