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Book Summary and Reviews of Return of the Player by Michael Tolkin

Return of the Player by Michael Tolkin

Return of the Player

by Michael Tolkin

  • Published:
  • Aug 2006, 256 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

The Player was a brilliant satire of Hollywood that has become a cult classic. Now, it's fifteen years later and film executive Griffin Mill is back. As the novel opens, Griffin, down to his last 6 million dollars, is broke. He has one last desperate plan, to quit the studio and convince Phil Ginsberg, an almost billionaire, to become his partner. Ginsberg takes the bait when Griffin donates $750,000 to the Coldwater Academy, the elite private high school that Ginsberg's son attends. He sees the potential in Griffin, a master of stories, and hires him to write one starring his money. It looks like Griffin's dream is on track, but he soon discovers that he has taken on more than he could have imagined. While Griffin's ideas barely percolate, his personal life is falling apart. His second marriage is broken, and he's beginning to think he shouldn't have divorced his first wife. And if that's not enough, Griffin commits another murder when his plan nearly collapses.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred review. Mill's antiheroic effort to wring love and meaning from a loveless and meaningless life is heartfelt and cynical, resulting in a powerful dark comedy that transcends the shopworn genre of Hollywood satire." - PW.
"Whenever its moribund souls aren't soliloquizing at ear-splitting volume and exhausting length, this is vivid, nasty fun." - Kirkus.

This information about Return of the Player was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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