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As a Hungarian immigrant working as a studio hack writing monster movies in 1950s Hollywood, George Curtis must navigate the McCarthy-era studio system filled with possible communists and spies, the life of closeted men along Sunset Boulevard, and the inability of the era to cleave love from persecution and guilt. But when Madeline, a famous actress, offers George a writing residency at her estate in Malibu to work on the political writing he cares most deeply about, his world is blown open. Soon Madeline is carrying George like an ornament into a class of postwar L.A. society ordinarily hidden from men like him.
What this lifestyle hides behind, aside from the monsters on the screen, are the monsters dwelling closer to home: this bacchanalia covers a gnawing hole shelled wide by the horror of the war they thought they’d left behind and the glimpse of an atomic future. It’s here that George understands he can never escape his past as György, the queer Jew who fled Budapest before the war and landed in New York, all alone, a decade prior.
Spanning from sun-drenched Los Angeles to the hidden corners of working-class New York to a virtuosic climax in the Las Vegas desert, The Future Was Color is an immaculately written exploration of postwar American decadence, reinventing the self through art, and the psychosis that lingers in a world that’s seen the bomb.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
June 4, 2024 -
Formats
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781640096257
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781640096257
- File size: 2822 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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April 22, 2024
The titillating latest from Nathan (Some Hell) portrays the life of a gay Hungarian Jew in Hollywood. In 1956, George Curtis is drawn to fellow screenwriter Jack Turner, the sight of whose body stings George “like the opulence of the homes in Beverly Hills.” After George and Jack visit actor Madeline Morrison in Malibu, Jack tempts George into acting on his attraction, sparking a romance that offers both men the promise of happiness. From there, Nathan flashes back to 17-year-old George’s arrival in 1944 New York City as György Kertész. The young refugee cruises for sex in public toilets at a time when men were entrapped and arrested for doing so, and eventually becomes involved in a bittersweet affair that prompts him to reinvent himself and move to California. Back in 1956, George, Jack, and Madeline attend a debauched party in Las Vegas that turns dangerous after many partygoers take copious amounts of LSD. Nathan nimbly interweaves the period’s zeitgeist into the narrative, including the Budapest Revolution and the fear of the nuclear bomb. The hopscotch structure dilutes some of the emotional impact, though each episode captivates, including a finale set in 1960s Paris. This portrait of an artist in the making dazzles. -
May 16, 2024
Los Angeles, 1956. Queer Hungarian American screenwriter George Curtis has become a de facto member of the retinue of fading star Madeline Morrison. Madeline collects people instead of stamps and parties relentlessly, involving George, his young lover, Jacques, and his coworker and favorite American, Jack Turner, and whisking them away to Las Vegas. At this point, the novel flashes back to 1944, the year a 17-year-old George arrives in America determined to become an artist, quickly becoming part of a group of avant-garde artists and other creative types. The novel later returns to Las Vegas and then moves to Paris for its melancholy conclusion. Nathan's second novel doesn't quite live up to his excellent debut, Some Hell (2018), coming across at times as overwritten and even a bit pretentious. But he writes memorable turns of phrase ("It was a night made of paintings or the very best dreams."), and George is a well-realized character whose interesting life will hold the reader's attention.COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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