Do Tell

Description

A scintillating debut novel that brings the golden age of Hollywood to glittering life, from star-studded opening nights to backlot brawls, on-location Westerns to the Hollywood Canteen. Through character actress turned gossip columnist Edie O’Dare’s eyes, Lindsay Lynch draws back the curtain on classic Hollywood’s secrets.

“Glamorous, tawdry, and human. A rich portrait of the lives of early Hollywood’s beautiful puppets and those holding their strings.” –Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author of This Time Tomorrow • “Do Tell illuminates issues of fame and notoriety as relevant now as they were almost a century ago.” –Geraldine Brooks, New York Times bestselling author of Horse

As character actress Edie O’Dare finishes the final year of her contract with FWM Studios, the clock is ticking for her to find a new gig after an undistinguished stint in the pictures. She’s long supplemented her income moonlighting for Hollywood’s reigning gossip columnist, providing her with the salacious details of every party and premiere. When an up-and-coming starlet hands her a letter alleging an assault from an A-list actor at a party with Edie and the rest of the industry’s biggest names in attendance, Edie helps get the story into print and sets off a chain of events that will alter the trajectories of everyone involved. 

Now on a new side of the entertainment business, Edie’s second act career grants her more control on the page than she ever commanded in front of the camera. But Edie quickly learns that publishing the secrets of those former colleagues she considers friends has repercussions. And when she finds herself in the middle of the trial of the decade, Edie is forced to make an impossible choice with the potential to ruin more than one life. Full of sharp observation and crackling wit, debut novelist Lindsay Lynch maps the intricate networks of power that manufacture the magic of the movies and interrogates who actually gets to tell women’s stories.“A wonderful, provocative novel about the way time changes how we see the world. Edie O’Dare is a failed Hollywood actress who reinvents herself as a gossip columnist in order to keep a roof over her head, only to discover that this is the job she’s good at. Like our intrepid narrator, Do Tell manages to be both funny and substantive, breezy and wise. I stepped into the stream of the narrative and didn’t look up until I came to the last page.”
–Ann Patchett, New York Times bestselling author of The Dutch House

“Gossip columnist Edie O’Dare has enemies and sources, but no friends in a Golden Age Hollywood whose gleam is tarnished by exploitation, cruelty and betrayal. Like a latter-day Cecil B. DeMille, Lindsay Lynch deftly directs her large cast of morally complex characters to illuminate issues of fame and notoriety as relevant now as they were almost a century ago.”
–Geraldine Brooks, New York Times bestselling author of Horse

“There is little more alluring than the promise of secrets, and Do Tell is full of them–glamorous, tawdry, and human. Lindsay Lynch has created a rich portrait of the lives of early Hollywood’s beautiful puppets and those holding their strings.”
–Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author of This Time Tomorrow

“Luscious . . . Lynch . . . deftly walks a line here between telling a blunt ‘Me Too’ story and serving up plenty of Turner Classics movie glamour. . . In her best lines, Edie also channels the wit of a Dorothy Parker”
–Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air

“Masterfully shaped. . . a gripping narrative set largely in the pre-war years of Hollywood. It follows the long career trajectory of its protagonist, an actress who . . . finds a second act, which includes encounters with a sweeping panoply of movie stars and wannabees.”
–Tom Hall, WYPR

“Ambitious . . . O’Dare’s voice resembles that of a hard-boiled, wisecracking private eye: a Sam Spade sister who operates within, and reports on, cutthroat Tinseltown antics.”
–The Washington Post

“A noir-like tale of Hollywood’s underbelly. . . If your best subject at trivia is Turner Classic Movies, if you go to conventions dressed like a starlet from Hollywood’s gilded age, Do Tell is a must-read.”
—The Associated Press

“Do Tell [is] twisty, juicy, gossipy historic fiction, and a tremendously fun read. . . Lindsay Lynch gives us the kind of contradictions that make for the best sort of novel: An intimate, heart-breaking character study embedded in a crowd of engaging, chattering characters. A sparkling visit to a magical era in Hollywood and a deep dive into the dirty deceptions that made it appear so fine. A masterclass in how stories are told, then retold, and retold again, until perfect – and perfectly unrelated to anything resembling real human connection or life.”
—Southern Review of Books

“Compelling”
–Minneapolis Star Tribune

“In Do Tell Lindsay Lynch takes a glance back at golden-age Hollywood and captures the fizzy magic, the secret lives, and the deep, destructive misogyny within the industry’s DNA. This is a wry, entertaining, and incisive debut.”
–Lily King, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers

“This dazzling novel is a riveting exposé of the dream factory which will surprise readers at every turn. You won’t be able to put it down.”
–Adriana Trigiani, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Left Undone

“[Lynch’s] twisty take on the golden age of Hollywood offers something for everybody.”
—Hollywood Reporter

“Do Tell is an absolute marvel: page-turning yet thought-provoking, historical in its setting yet contemporary in its concerns. With a keen eye for period detail, Lindsay Lynch explores how the power of secrets were the secret to power in Hollywood’s Golden Age. The result is a deeply moving, immensely satisfying, blockbuster of a debut novel.”
–Anthony Marra, New York Times bestselling author of Mercury Pictures Presents

“Lindsay Lynch has written a novel so thoroughly immersive, I looked up from its pages disoriented — confused not to find myself amid the couture gowns and hushed secrets of old Hollywood. I’ll tell every reader I know: I adored Do Tell.” 
— Mary Laura Philpott, bestselling author of Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives

“Do Tell is a glittering, riot of a debut filled with tantalizing gossip, lavish parties and an insider’s glimpse into a bygone era of Hollywood glamour. Lindsay Lynch brings the studio system to life with these unforgettable yet deeply complicated characters whose lives are caught at the crossroads of power and truth telling. This is a novel you won’t want to miss.”
—Kali Fajardo-Anstine, bestselling author of Woman of Light and Sabrina & Corina

“An electric novel about power and complicity in the Golden Age of Hollywood told through the eyes of Edith O’Dare, a narrator as fearsome as she is fallible. In Do Tell, Lindsay Lynch masterfully uncovers a world in which gossip is currency and image is everything, laying bare the devastating consequences of secrets told and untold. Enthralling and utterly relevant.”
—Jenny Tinghui Zhang, international bestselling author of Four Treasures of the Sky

“Stunning . . . Do Tell is a vivid novel of the early days of Hollywood glitz and glamour, and tells the story of one woman making her way in a world dominated by fame, power, secrets–and men.”
–Shelf Awareness

“Sparkling, sharp. . . It’s tempting to call Do Tell timely, but the chilling truth is that it feels timeless. . . With its insider-outsider narrator and dazzling cast of characters, Do Tell shares a kinship with The Great Gatsby.”
—Chapter 16

“An intelligent story of Hollywood’s Golden Age . . . the dialogue and Edie’s narration are steeped in the rapid-fire rhythm of the era’s films . . . Lovers of the silver screen will be drawn to this.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Between the glittering descriptions of couture gowns and award shows, this scathing, retrospective #MeToo tale focuses on how people will protect famous, predatory men out of self-preservation. . . Readers looking for a novel that covers all the drama Hollywood has to offer, from its glitz to its evils, will find much to enjoy here.”
—Booklist

“A clever first novel; it should be catnip to devotees of Golden Age Hollywood.”
—Air Mail

“Entertaining . . . An intimate look at Hollywood’s dark secrets.”
––Kirkus

“Lynch offers a page-turning historical fiction as lavish as a Jay Gatsby party. Readers won’t soon forget Edie O’Dare, a failed Golden Age Hollywood starlet, who is one of the most striking narrators in recent memory. Lynch’s language dazzles on every page.”
—DebutifulLINDSAY LYNCH is a writer from Washington, DC. A longtime indie bookseller, she currently lives in Nashville, TN, where she works as a book buyer for Parnassus Books. Her work has appeared in The Adroit Journal, The Rumpus, Electric Lit, The Atlantic, The Offing and Lit Hub, among other places. She has been a participant in the Tin House Summer Work­shop and the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference. She holds an MFA in Fiction from the University of Wyoming. Do Tell is her debut novel.

1. What was your impression of the golden age of Hollywood before reading Do Tell? How did the novel change the way you thought about the studio system and the actors, directors, publicists, and writers that made up its ecosystem? What did you get right?

2. Edie says she built her career by focusing on “the things actors won’t say” (p 3). What do you think is the most valuable secret she picks up on over the course of the novel? How does covert observation play into your life, relationships, and work?

3. Edie and Charles discuss their working-class backgrounds in contrast to their current circumstances as Hollywood actors. How do you think Edie’s childhood shapes her adult outlook? How does her experience of scarcity differ from Seb’s?

4. Sophie’s assault trial is one of the major plot threads in Part One of Do Tell. What did you think Edie’s responsibility was to Sophie when asked to help get Sophie’s story into print? If you were Edie, would you have told Augustan about your involvement sooner?

5. Edie chooses to print the story about Charles rather than her findings about Margy’s marriage during Freddy’s trial—based on what Edie knew at the time, would you have made the same choice in her shoes? Were there questions you wished she’d asked that she didn’t?

6. World War II complicates studio operations in Part Two. How does Do Tell’s treatment of the American war effort differ from other stories you’ve read set in this period? What’s your take on the way the studio system played a role in wartime propaganda, and how those changes affected the characters in the novel? How do you think you might have participated in the Hollywood war effort?

7. Throughout the novel, we see that Edie’s words, and the words of her fellow actors, have power. When does gossip work in these characters’ favor? Is it always pernicious? Are gossip columns inherently dangerous? Why did studios like FWM opt into relationships with writers like Edie?

8. Characters in Do Tell go unpunished. How did that make you feel? Were there elements of the conclusion that surprised you? In a perfect world, how would you see justice served?

9. Edie calls Hollywood “a city that promised reshoots” (p 271). Where in your life do you wish you could try again? She also calls Los Angeles “a city that no one was supposed to be from” (p 205). How does self-invention play into LA’s role in the novel?

10. Though Do Tell is historical fiction, Sophie’s trial and its outcome feel timely given recent news events and social movements. How do you think Sophie’s allegations might have been received had she gone to trial today? Do you think public opinion and the jury’s outcome could be different? Why or why not?

11. How do you think the film industry has changed since the 1930s and 40s? Do you feel movies are made differently now than they were then? Do you think the current trends in cinema are positive? Is there anything from the past that you’d like to see brought back for today’s new releases?

12. What films, tv shows, or novels did Do Tell most remind you of? Did Edie’s story make you want to revisit any of those stories to compare and contrast? Who would you cast in a film adaptation?

One

The last time I saw Charles Landrieu in Los Angeles, he told me I had gotten everything wrong.

“Everything?” I asked him.

Everything.

It wasn’t the first time someone had leveled this accusation against me and I was certain it wouldn’t be the last.

Actors talk so much–not enough people focus on the things they won’t say.

So I did. I built my career in silences and averted glances, paying attention to who missed work, who skipped parties. I asked why, and when no one answered, I filled in the blanks myself.

The day I talked with Charles, I considered asking him to give me whatever he believed to be the correct story. To tell me what I had missed. By that time, he was blacklisted from every studio in Hollywood; he had nothing to lose.

But he didn’t want to talk. He paced around my living room and made reference to a party we’d all been at before the war–he had every reason to remember it well; it was his engagement party. That was all he had to say. Charles Landrieu was done talking for a while.

I told him to gain ten pounds and join the army. He did.

Let’s talk about the night in question, the night I allegedly ruined a life or two, or three: Thomas Brodbeck’s party celebrating the engagement of FWM Studios stars Charles Landrieu and Nell Parker, August 1939.

The guest list included a group of people whose lives would be altered by that night: Charles and Nell; Augustan Charters and myself; Margy Prescott and her notably absent husband, Hal Bingham; and Sophie Melrose, a young actress who only wanted to go to her first Hollywood party. Finally, there was the man who had not been invited but arrived anyway: Freddy Clarke.

When I told my brother, Seb, we’d be stopping at a party that night, I might have intentionally withheld some details. It was his first day in Los Angeles, so the name Thomas Brodbeck meant little to him. There wasn’t any reason why Sebastian O’Shaughnessy, darling of the New York literati, should have had any idea who the FWM studio chief was, or even what a studio chief did. As soon as I began listing the names of actors and actresses, though, Seb understood.

“We won’t have to stay long?” he asked.

“An hour at the most, not even that,” I said. I told him we had to say hello to Brodbeck and congratulate Charles and Nell on their pretend engagement. Public appearances like these were part of my contract with the studio.

I had convinced Seb to move to Hollywood on the pretense that I was a moderately successful actress who could land him a job screenwriting.

The thing is, I really was a moderately successful actress who could land him a job screenwriting. My only omission to my brother was that I had only three months left on my contract and FWM Studios didn’t renew contracts for moderately successful actresses.

“Anyway, you have to talk to Augustan,” I said as I poured us each a glass of whiskey–mine on the rocks, his straight.

“I don’t know who that is.”

“You’ll love him,” I lied. “He runs all the things at FWM that no one else has the time to run. I already told him you’d be there. He’s excited to meet you. I’m certain he can get you a job.”

As I began going up the stairs to change into my dress, Seb demanded that I wait a goddamn minute. Seb still had a heavy accent from our years growing up in Boston. His voice went up as he spoke to me, and for a moment I saw the young boy he had once been–the lanky awkwardness of his posture and the redness in his pale cheeks. Though we regularly wrote each other, I hadn’t seen him in person for a long time. Between the two of us, I was the one who could afford to travel, and I hadn’t left California since the early thirties. I’d talked about it in my letters to him, swearing that I’d take the time off to visit. But the time off never came.

“You told me I already had a job,” he said.

I shook my head and pursed my lips. “I wouldn’t have said that.”

Seb went over to his worn-down briefcase by the front door and began rummaging through it. He produced a handwritten letter. He went over to the couch and smoothed the letter out on the coffee table. I watched as he bent over it, carefully running his finger along each line.

“There,” he said, pointing to the letter. “In your own words, one week ago: ‘If you come to Hollywood, you’ll have a job.’ ”

I nodded and leaned against the banister. “Yes, you will have a job. Look at you—college graduate, one novel published already. You’re very employable! That’s why we’re going to the party.”

“I took out my savings to come here, Edie,” he said. “I got rid of everything I had!”

“And I’m sure the mattress that lived on your floor is happy to begin anew in a dumpster somewhere.”

I looked at Seb sitting in my living room, his red hair standing on end and his shirt wrinkled. He’d arrived from the train station only a few hours earlier.

“I don’t suppose you have a suit?” I asked.

Seb was not amused when I came down the stairs fifteen minutes later in a gown. The gown was on loan from a friend in the FWM costuming department; it was intended to be worn by Carla Longworth in an upcoming romantic drama, but she’d rejected the fabric choice, said the tulle made her look too wide. I wasn’t sure how wide the tulle made me look, and frankly didn’t care–it wasn’t as though I was in the running to be the most beautiful woman at that party. Anyone from the studio would be able to identify the dress for what it was, but I could see Seb doing mental calculations of its worth. That’s how it had always been with me and Seb; after a childhood of scarcity, we could never stop appraising what was in front of us.

Even if I had told Seb the gown wasn’t mine, he still would have resented me for making him go to a party underdressed. He spent the entire car ride over picking at his sleeves and smoothing out his trousers.

“Trust me,” I said. “They’ll think it’s very New York of you. That kind of credibility gets people jobs.”

“Humiliating is what it is.”

“Well, I’d hate for you to discover the kinds of getups actresses have to wear to be employed here.”

When we pulled up in front of the Bel Air mansion, Seb refused to get out of the car. I told him I’d drag him by his ear if I had to. I’d done it a hundred times when we were children, and I would do it again.

I watched Seb’s face as he took in the mansion, the way his mouth turned down at the corners and his eyes grew wide. While I assumed he’d seen his share of wealthy estates on the East Coast, I couldn’t imagine any of them had prepared him for what Los Angeles had to offer. Thomas Brodbeck’s house had been built in the twenties, all tiled floors and high ceilings. Anything that could be gilded was gilded, from the molding along the walls to the railings on the staircases. He imported plants from around the world: palms, orchids, birds-of-paradise. Even the staff was adorned with gold buttons and a fresh flower for every lapel.

Five years ago, he would’ve toned it all down; it was poor taste to be wealthy while the rest of the country was devastated. But the thirties were nearly over. As we crept closer and closer to a new decade, there was a promise of fleeting abundance–everyone figured they could take advantage of it as long as it lasted.

We hadn’t made it five feet inside before a glass of champagne appeared next to me and I heard a voice in my ear, smooth and low.

“Do me a kindness and murder me, would you? I trust you’ll make it discreet and relatively painless.”

I turned and saw Augustan looking elegant in a tuxedo. He was always a sharp dresser: one of those men who took care that their pocket squares complemented their ties, that their hair was neatly combed back, that their shoes were sent over from Italy. The real beauty of it was how he never drew attention to himself. It wasn’t Augustan’s place to be noticed. His traits were mostly unremarkable–he was of average height, with dull brown hair and pale gray eyes. It was only in spending excessive time with him that I ever noticed the care he put into the details.

Before I had the chance to introduce Sebastian to him, Augustan directed me into the foyer, his hand firm against the small of my back. I left poor Seb standing alone next to the doorway with nothing more than a wave and a mouthed apology.

Chief of publicity was Augustan’s real title. He could be seen in the background of every FWM party and premiere, where he kept a watchful eye on the actors and actresses. Most of his time was spent managing the A-list of FWM Studios–among his treasured wards were Freddy Clarke, Nell Parker, and Charles Landrieu.

During my time as an actress, I was neither precious nor destructive enough to merit Augustan’s care. My handler was an old man named Horace, who always smelled of sardines. I only ever heard from him during my first two years under contract–every few months he called to tell me I had to do a photo shoot to celebrate whatever holiday was closest. He once had me stand half naked in front of a forest backdrop with a photo crew for an hour. It wasn’t until I saw my picture in Screenland that I realized we were honoring Arbor Day.

My friendship with Augustan was forged at an upscale party while looking for an escaped monkey from the host’s private zoo. We took a bottle of gin, a large net that was originally intended to fish leaves out of the backyard pool, and some galoshes from the hunting room. Augustan joked about taking a musket, but I told him nobody likes a dead monkey. (“You mean nobody likes a dead actress,” he replied. “Which, I have to tell you, statistically speaking? They really do.”) For three hours, we took turns swinging the net at miscellaneous bushes and shrubs while we complained about every person we hated in Hollywood, from the actors to the executives. Nothing forms a bond quicker than discovering a subject of mutual loathing, and we had several. We never did find that monkey. Monkeys can live a long time, decades even; I like to imagine it’s still wandering somewhere around Orange County.

As my acting roles waned, my confidence with Augustan grew. We started arriving at parties together, and before long we started occasionally leaving together as well. Augustan and I had a mutual understanding that neither of us would ever put too much stock into the fact that we had shared a bed here and there.

I don’t like to deploy the word snitch, so let’s say I became an unofficial publicity associate. Actresses sneaking into their costars’ dressing rooms, men who couldn’t hold both their liquor and their tongues, set crews talking about unions–that was the kind of information Augustan valued, so I made certain I always had stories on hand.

I knew plenty of failed actresses who rode out the remainder of their contracts sitting in whatever hotel room or apartment the studio paid for, eating burgers and fries with reckless abandon until it was time for them to go back to the midwestern towns they came from. I’m sure all of them found nice husbands with nice paychecks and their time spent in Hollywood became nothing more than a benign anecdote for cocktail parties.

Turns out I’m not the benign-anecdote-for-cocktail-parties kind of woman.

Augustan began explaining that the newly engaged couple, Charles Landrieu and Nell Parker, had the chemistry of a soda bottle left open in the sun for too long.

“They only just got off location,” he said. “Traveled overnight from Arizona and then it was straight into this. I’ll be lucky if they remain conscious through the dessert course.”

Augustan continued with his grievances: The actor Freddy Clarke had weaseled his way into the party despite having been banned from any festivities at Brodbeck’s estate a few months ago. The hors d’oeuvres weren’t properly chilled and tasted sour. Someone had been pestering him about meeting a second-rate novelist for a screenwriting job.

I hit his arm with my clutch. “That was me. And he’s a very first-rate novelist!”

Augustan scoffed. “Is he Hemingway?”

“No,” I said, “but he’ll do a damn fine job adapting Hemingway, which you and I both know is more than anyone can say for Hemingway himself.”

All this time, Augustan had been leading me toward the back of the room, where Charles and Nell stood at the end of a large winding staircase, with a crowd of reporters pooled around them. Every minute or so, the bulbs flashed, illuminating Charles and Nell as he held an arm around her waist and she turned to look up at him lovingly.

The two made for a nice contrast: Nell’s pale tone and white-blond hair against Charles’s tan skin (“Spanish heritage,” Augustan liked to assure people). Charles was clean-shaven that night, his curly black hair oiled back so it wouldn’t obscure his blue eyes. Next to him, Nell was wearing a gold-embellished Schiaparelli in white. The dress looked loose on her, but I had also heard that she had all her dresses tailored to make her appear even smaller than she already was. When it came to Nell’s appearance, there were never any mistakes. If that woman so much as had a hair out of place, I could be certain it was done on purpose.

In spite of Nell’s efforts, the last time Augustan polled the public for adjectives they’d use to describe her, she got charming, pleasant, and fair. Hardly the qualifications for a leading lady in a major studio.

So, what did Augustan do? He paired her with the adjectives fiery and gritty. Said one housewife from Des Moines: “He looks like he would toss a girl onto a couch, but not without asking politely for permission first.”

Charles Landrieu.

He was still a fresh face then. Back around ’36, the director Rolf Junger pulled a young man named Émile Arceneaux off the stunt lot. One of Rolf’s secondary actors had quit just days before they were scheduled to go on location for a Western. He needed a cheap and easy replacement, so he went through FWM’s available stuntmen and pulled whichever ones were the best looking.US

Additional information

Weight	21.8 oz
Dimensions	1.3000 × 6.4300 × 9.5700 in
Imprint	Doubleday
Format	General Trade
ISBN-13	09780385549370
ISBN-10	0385549377
Author	Lindsay Lynch
Audience	General / adult
BISAC	FIC022060, FIC044000
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