Never Odd or Even

A Hollywood director links up with a career criminal as part of a quest for cinematic authenticity in this hilarious showbiz satire from comics artist Young (coauthor of Don’t Forget This Song). The novel is framed as the memoir of Charles Jerome, a director who finds fame with groundbreaking realist short films. When a studio executive agrees to distribute Jerome’s first feature, he sets his sights on the pulpy noir paperback Never Odd or Even, buying the rights and setting out to make the screenplay as authentic as possible. He lucks out when he finds a man named Sam Mellinger attempting to steal his car. Instead of turning Mellinger in, Jerome befriends him and seeks his advice in refining the story’s criminal dimensions. Together, they hatch a daring idea: to have the cast “commit real crimes, on camera.” Soon, their scheme puts them on the wrong side of the law. Young delivers big laughs (at one point, Jerome is asked “to turn Joan Didion’s collection of essays about the hippie culture of Haight-Ashbury into a... soap opera”) and tight plotting. This is a good bet for Elmore Leonard fans. (June)