A WAY OF LIFE, LIKE ANY OTHER [Uncorrected Proof]

New York, NY: New York Review Books, 2001. Advance Reading Copy (ARC) . Soft cover. New/None as Issued. BRAND NEW COPY w/trace soil spot to front of blue softcover. Advance Reading Copy (Uncorrected Proof). Debut novel, and fictionalized account of his own childhood, from fiction writer & literary critic Darcy O'Brien (1939 - 1998), recipient of the 1978 Ernest Hemingway Award for best first novel. Los Angeles born O'Brien was son of silent film star George O'Brien (1899 - 1985) and actress Marguerite Churchill (1910 - 2000), co-star to John Wayne and Spencer Tracy. A Hollywood coming of age novel. A Way of Life, Like Any Other begins as "a way of life, like no other" ---- a glittery dream world of wealth, fame and showy estates --- father starred in Westerns, and mother a goddess of the silver screen. Then his parents' careers crash, so with it the marriage, and life transforms to "like any other" for young teenager O'Brien who struggles to keep faith with his family as even his father retreats into memories of past fame, and his mother tries to reclaim her lost youth. A sensitive portrait, told with wit, of contemporary life in these United States.