Book review: The Devil’s Guide To Hollywood

The Devil’s Guide To Hollywood
Joe Eszterhas
St Martin’s Press

Review: Suzan Ryan

Outspoken, belligerent, insightful, indiscreet and undeniably talented, screenwriter Joe Eszterhas is the man behind some of Hollywood’s most expensive scripts and highest-grossing movies—such as Flashdance, Jagged Edge and Basic Instinct.

He is also a man with a quick temper and a low threshold for idiots; making him a poor fit with the FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) vacuities of the people involved with Hollywood’s movie machine.

Eszterhas is almost too eager to speak his mind, no matter the cost. For the famed screenwriter, retaining ownership of your dignity in a town where weak character is king and integrity is an affect available for sale by-the-hour, is essential to not blowing out your brains at the end of the day.

The Devil’s Guide To Hollywood is a tell-all tome that is as much about keeping the faith as it is as about the art of scriptwriting (i.e. don’t let the bastards see you blink). It is wickedly humorous, painfully revealing, scathingly vituperative, and honest (despite the author’s clearly hurt feelings perpetually colouring his comments). You don’t have to be interested in the art of screenwriting to fall in love with this book; possessing a modicum of integrity, a cynical sense of humour, and a distaste for the malignant narcissism of most people, is sufficient.

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