The Disenchanted
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Book Presentation:
Considered by some to be Budd Schulberg’s masterpiece, The Disenchanted tells the tragic story of Manley Halliday, a fabulously successful writer during the 1920s—a golden figure in a golden age—who by the late 1930s is forgotten by the literary establishment, living in Hollywood and writing for the film industry. Halliday is hired to work on a screenplay with a young writer in his twenties named Shep, who is desperate for success and idolizes Halliday. The two are sent to New York City, where a few drinks on the plane begin an epic disintegration on the part of Halliday due to the forces of alcoholism he is heroically fighting against and the powerful draw of memory and happier times. Based in part on a real-life and ill-fated writing assignment between the author and F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1939, Schulberg’s novel is at its heart a masterful depiction of Manley Halliday—at times bitter, at others sympathetic and utterly sorrowful—and The Disenchanted stands as one of the most compelling and emotional evocations of generational disillusionment and fallen American stardom.
About the Author:
Budd Schulberg (1914–2009) was born in New York City and grew up in Hollywood, where his father was production chief of Paramount Studios and his mother a successful agent. His many novels include the classic What Makes Sammy Run? and The Harder They Fall, and his screenplay for On the Waterfront earned Schulberg an Academy Award in 1954.
Press Reviews:
"[Halliday] will haunt the imagination of all who have the good fortune to be coming, for the first time, to this remarkable novel." ―Anthony Burgess
"A living, breathing portrait so vivid you forget who sat for it . . . so valid esthetically that it transcends its corporeal origin and becomes at last a naked, tormented image of that rarely beheld being, a man."―James M. Cain, New York Times
"As Fitzgeraldian as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Halliday is the very essence of ‘the lost generation.’"―Library Journal
"More compassionate than his previous books, The Disenchanted constitutes a sad obituary for the Fitzgerald age."―Kirkus, starred review
"As sad a novel as any contemporary novelist has written, sometimes heartbreakingly so . . . a magnificently done piece of work."―San Francisco Chronicle
"Schulberg has a ferocious knowledge of Hollywood, and his satiric portraits of Milgrim, the producer, and Al Harper, the agent, are sharp and amusing; so too is his rendition of Hollywood sweet-talk."―Edward Weeks, The Atlantic
"A brilliant and arresting book. Manley Halliday is a magnificent portrait."―Orville Prescott, The New York Times
"A captivating novel about a doomed project between two writers at opposite ends of their careers. "―Out of the Past blog
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