Narrated by a starry-eyed lesbian, Big Red reimagines the tragic career of Rita Hayworth and her indomitable husband, Orson Welles. Set amidst the noir glamour of Hollywood's Golden Age, Big Red reenvisions the life of one of America's most enduring icons: Gilda herself, Rita Hayworth, whose fiery red hair and hypnotic dancing helped make her the quintessential movie star of the 1940s. With narrator Rusty Redburn - a feisty second-string gossip columnist from Kalamazoo tasked with spying on Hayworth by Columbia movie mogul Harry 'The Janitor' Cohn - as our guide, we follow the meteoric rise and heartrending demise of the actress, encountering her exploitative father, Eduardo; her controlling husband, 'boy genius' Orson Welles; and notorious journalist Louella Parsons, among many others. Mixing his trademark screwball comedy and unerring tragedy, Jerome Charyn, with his 'polymorphous imagination' (Jonathan Lethem) reanimates film classics such as Cover Girl, Gilda, and The Lady from Shanghai. An insightful, tender portrait of a seemingly halcyon age before blockbusters and film franchises, Big Red promises to consume both Hollywood cinephiles and neophytes alike. 'Charyn skillfully breathes life into historical icons' - NEW YORKER
"'Big Red, Charyn's latest, tells the story of the 1940s screen goddess Rita Hayworth and her relationship with the wunderkind director Orson Welles. Charyn has created a memorable narrator in Rusty Redburn, a fiery gossip columnist hired to spy on Hayworth, who changes sides to become her confidant and friend. Through Rusty's eyes we witness the film star's rollercoaster life and the ambivalent a
Sunday Times (Best Historical Fiction Book of 2022)
"'Charyn, a veteran novelist, biographer and essayist, subtly evokes F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby in telling his saga of star-crossed charismatics through the eyes of an all-seeing peripheral figure... Inspired'"
