I Should Have Stayed Home: A Novel

· Open Road Media
Ebook
180
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

McCoy's classic, slyly funny novel about a pair of young actors trying to make it in a pitiless Hollywood
For aspiring actor Ralph Carston, all roads lead to Hollywood—but none seem to be direct or easy. The handsome Georgia native immediately finds that his Southern accent is one strike against him, though he manages to eke out a living as an extra alongside his pretty roommate Mona Matthews. But the big break for these two young hopefuls finally arrives in a curious way. When their third roommate is sentenced to three years in prison for shoplifting, Mona's emotional courtroom outburst wins her and Ralph notoriety—and entrée into new social circles. Ralph becomes the self-loathing plaything of Ethel Smithers, a wealthy widow who promises much but has no interest in delivering. Mona faces romantic nightmares of her own while also being blacklisted for joining a union. A precursor to Sunset Boulevard, and reminiscent of Nathanael West, I Should Have Stayed Home is a fantastically hardboiled portrait of Tinseltown in the thirties.

This ebook features an extended biography of Horace McCoy.
McCoy's classic, slyly funny novel about a pair of young actors trying to make it in a pitiless Hollywood For aspiring actor Ralph Carston, all roads lead to Hollywood—but none seem to be direct or easy. The handsome Georgia native immediately finds that his Southern accent is one strike against...

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About the author

Horace Stanley McCoy (1897–1955) was an American novelist whose gritty, hardboiled novels documented the hardships Americans faced during the Depression and post-war periods. McCoy grew up in Tennessee and Texas; after serving in the air force during World War I, he worked as a journalist, film actor, and screenplay writer, and is author of five novels including They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1935) and the noir classic Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1948). Though underappreciated in his own time, McCoy is now recognized as a peer of Dashiell Hammett and James Cain. He died in Beverly Hills, California, in 1955.
Horace Stanley McCoy (1897–1955) was an American novelist whose gritty, hardboiled novels documented the hardships Americans faced during the Depression and post-war periods. McCoy grew up in Tennessee and Texas; after serving in the air force during World War I, he worked as a journalist, film a...

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