Queer People: A Madcap Jazz Age Satire of Hollywood's Scandalous Eccentrics
The lost Hollywood novel that scandalized an industry - back in print after 50 years.
"Queer" is used in its 1913 Webster's Dictionary sense - strange, eccentric, unconventional - a celebration of the gloriously oddball characters of 1920s Hollywood.
First published in 1930, Queer People was the insider takedown that set Hollywood's hair on end: a wickedly funny roman clef by two journalists who actually worked inside the studio system. Irving Thalberg, John Gilbert, Louella Parsons, and many more, appear thinly veiled in a satire so accurate that when Howard Hughes bought the film rights, no actor would agree to play themselves.
This carefully restored scholarly edition includes the complete original text, a new foreword by noted film historian Chris Yogerst, a vintage map of the book's Hollywood locations, and a publisher's afterword providing full historical context. The direct ancestor of The Studio, The Player, Sunset Boulevard, and contemporary Hollywood satire.
"About as funny as anything I've ever read." - Graydon Carter, former editor of Vanity Fair, in The New York Times (2025)
"Satirizes Hollywood in almost libelous terms... set Hollywood's hair on end." - TIME Magazine (1931)
"The best work that has appeared in this field... an extremely entertaining one." - New York Times (1930)
Course adoption potential for Film Studies, American Literature, and Cultural History programs.
Available in paperback, hardcover, ebook, and audiobook.
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