Hollywoodski - Paperback

by Lou Mathews (Author)

Featuring "Desperate Times, Desperate Crimes," winner of the 2026 Pushcart Prize L: Best of the Small Presses

A Best L.A.-Centric Book of 2025 by L.A. TACO

A compelling novel-in-stories, Hollywoodski showcases a self-described "faded" screenwriter's forty-year career.

Dale Davis is a man encumbered by a natural writing talent, corrupted by early success, and reduced to scrambling for crumbs. He arrives in Hollywood, unbattered and innocent, with a novel about his days as an almost Olympic-caliber swimmer. But his faith in the prevailing powers of talent and justice in Tinseltown leaves him essentially black-listed and unemployable, a talented writer who just can't get paid. Despite the fading of a once-promising career, Davis still believes that his talent will propel him back into prominence. But that belief, in Hollywood, is about as realistic as the belief that "Someday my prince will come," and as likely to make you depressed and crazy.

Hollywoodski is a nonlinear journey through Davis's life, weaving his memories with stories he's written over the years, charting how his hopes and dreams have changed over time. Featuring stories originally published in prominent publications such as The New England Review, ZYZZYVA, and Black Clock, Hollywoodski is a sweeping and inventive telling of the strange avenues that a life follows.

Author Biography

Lou Mathews lives in Los Angeles and is a fourth generation Angeleno. Married at nineteen, he worked his way through UC Santa Cruz as a gas station attendant and mechanic and continued to work as a mechanic until he was thirty-nine. His first novel, L.A. Breakdown, about illegal street racing, was picked by the Los Angeles Times as a Best Book of 1999. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction, a California Arts Council Fiction Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, and a Katherine Anne Porter Prize. His short stories have been published in more than forty literary magazines including Short Story, ZYZZYVA, New England Review Witness, Crazy Horse, and Black Clock, as well as twelve fiction anthologies and two textbook series.

He has taught in UCLA Extension's renowned Writer's Program since 1989 and is a recipient of Teacher of the Year and Outstanding Instructor Awards.

His last novel, Shaky Town, was published in September 2021 and was long-listed for the 2022 Tournament of Books. More details on Mathews and Shaky Town can be found at https: //www.tigervanbooks.com/shaky-town.