Ten Days In The Hills

In the aftermath of the 2003 Academy Awards, Max and Elena - he's an Oscar-winning writer/director - open their Holywood Hills home to a group of friends and neighbours, industry insiders and hangers-on, eager to escape the outside world and dissect the latest news, gossip, and secrets of the business. Over the next ten days, old lovers collide, new relationships form, and sparks fly, all with Jane Smiley's signature sparkling wit and characterization.

“A blazing farce, a fiery satire of contemporary celebrity culture and a rich, simmering meditation on the price of war and fame and desire.”   -  Los Angeles Times Book Review

As they share their stories of Hollywood past and present, watch films in Max’s opulent screening room, gossip by the swimming pool, and tussle in the many bedrooms, the tension mounts, sparks fly, and Jane Smiley delivers an exquisitely woven, virtuosic work — a Hollywood novel as only she could fashion it, told with bravura, rich with delightful characters, spiced with her signature wit.

"Sprawling, languid, randy... Ten Days in the Hills is a novel, and a shimmering one at that, of social observations, archly written and mordantly funny.”   -  San Francisco Chronicle

"A couple of touching moments toward the end can't redeem this surprising misstep from one of our most gifted novelists."  -  Kirkus Reviews

Ten Days In The Hills is a glowing addition to the work of one of our most beloved novelists.  It is a joyful, sexy, and wondrously insightful pleasure.