American Dream Machine is the story of two talent agents and their three troubled boys, heirs to Hollywood royalty. It’s a sweeping narrative about fathers and sons, the movie business, and the sundry sea changes that have shaped Hollywood and, by extension, American life.
Beau Rosenwald—overweight, not particularly handsome, and improbably charismatic—arrives in Los Angeles in 1962 with nothing but an ill-fitting suit and a pair of expensive brogues. By the late 1970s he has helped found the most successful agency in Hollywood. Through the eyes of his son, we watch Beau and his partner go to war, waging a seismic battle that redraws the lines of an entire industry. We watch Beau rise and fall and rise again, in accordance with the cultural transformations that dictate the fickle world of movies. We watch Beau's partner, the enigmatic and cerebral Williams Farquarsen, struggle to contain himself, to control his impulses and consolidate his power. And we watch two generations of men fumble and thrive across the LA landscape, learning for themselves the shadows and costs exacted by success and failure. Mammalian, funny, and filled with characters both vital and profound, American Dream Machine is a piercing interrogation of the role—nourishing,
From Booklist
In his picaresque sophomore novel, Specktor (That Summertime Sound, 2009) portrays Beau Rosenwald, as seen or imagined through his son Nate’s ubiquitous perspective. It’s the early 1990s, an era marked by grunge music and slackerism. Through a haze of pot smoke and hangovers, aspiring writer Nate finds himself reflecting more and more on Beau, an overweight but ambitious dreamer who begrudgingly moved from New York to Los Angeles in 1962, a transformative time in cinema’s history, determined to break into the business end of the industry. Along with his friend Williams Farquarsen, a southern gentleman and fierce Hollywood-attorney, Beau lunges haphazardly after success. Despite his slovenly appearance, Beau wooed women and celebrities alike, establishing a name for himself as the driven, if not emotionally bared, talent agent who would change the business of film forever. As Nate recounts Beau’s passion and sexual escapades, he endeavors to decipher his paternal legacy. With coolness and precision, Specktor comes across as a West Coast Saul Bellow in this sweeping narrative, but his energetic, pop-infused prose is markedly his own. --Jonathan Fullmer
From Bookforum
American Dream Machine may be a bittersweet title, Specktor implies, but it's not necessarily an ironic one. He is the son of Creative Artists Agency's Fred Specktor, whose clients have included Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Jeremy Irons, and Gene Hackman. Most of these actors' names appear in American Dream Machine, attached to figures who may or may not represent their corporeal forms. The first star spotted is George Clooney, or a guy who looks like George Clooney, in a restaurant on Sunset Boulevard, "puking in one of the ficuses back by the men's room." With all its mischevious celebrity cameos, the book seems to be staking out a middle ground between fan fiction and J.G. Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition. There's a tantalizing fragrance of mystery and glamour wafting up through many of the novel's pages, which may be enough to compel a reader to keep tearing through them, especially a reader who lacks an all-acess pass to the Hollywood dream machine. But in setting out to overthrow an earlier model—in this case, a standard depiction of Hollywood as bleak, hollow, a screaming void—Specktor has instead managed to mimic that model, without reflecting its merits.—Jessica Winter
Description:
American Dream Machine is the story of two talent agents and their three troubled boys, heirs to Hollywood royalty. It’s a sweeping narrative about fathers and sons, the movie business, and the sundry sea changes that have shaped Hollywood and, by extension, American life.
Beau Rosenwald—overweight, not particularly handsome, and improbably charismatic—arrives in Los Angeles in 1962 with nothing but an ill-fitting suit and a pair of expensive brogues. By the late 1970s he has helped found the most successful agency in Hollywood. Through the eyes of his son, we watch Beau and his partner go to war, waging a seismic battle that redraws the lines of an entire industry. We watch Beau rise and fall and rise again, in accordance with the cultural transformations that dictate the fickle world of movies. We watch Beau's partner, the enigmatic and cerebral Williams Farquarsen, struggle to contain himself, to control his impulses and consolidate his power. And we watch two generations of men fumble and thrive across the LA landscape, learning for themselves the shadows and costs exacted by success and failure. Mammalian, funny, and filled with characters both vital and profound, American Dream Machine is a piercing interrogation of the role—nourishing,
From Booklist
In his picaresque sophomore novel, Specktor (That Summertime Sound, 2009) portrays Beau Rosenwald, as seen or imagined through his son Nate’s ubiquitous perspective. It’s the early 1990s, an era marked by grunge music and slackerism. Through a haze of pot smoke and hangovers, aspiring writer Nate finds himself reflecting more and more on Beau, an overweight but ambitious dreamer who begrudgingly moved from New York to Los Angeles in 1962, a transformative time in cinema’s history, determined to break into the business end of the industry. Along with his friend Williams Farquarsen, a southern gentleman and fierce Hollywood-attorney, Beau lunges haphazardly after success. Despite his slovenly appearance, Beau wooed women and celebrities alike, establishing a name for himself as the driven, if not emotionally bared, talent agent who would change the business of film forever. As Nate recounts Beau’s passion and sexual escapades, he endeavors to decipher his paternal legacy. With coolness and precision, Specktor comes across as a West Coast Saul Bellow in this sweeping narrative, but his energetic, pop-infused prose is markedly his own. --Jonathan Fullmer
From Bookforum
American Dream Machine may be a bittersweet title, Specktor implies, but it's not necessarily an ironic one. He is the son of Creative Artists Agency's Fred Specktor, whose clients have included Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Jeremy Irons, and Gene Hackman. Most of these actors' names appear in American Dream Machine, attached to figures who may or may not represent their corporeal forms. The first star spotted is George Clooney, or a guy who looks like George Clooney, in a restaurant on Sunset Boulevard, "puking in one of the ficuses back by the men's room." With all its mischevious celebrity cameos, the book seems to be staking out a middle ground between fan fiction and J.G. Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition. There's a tantalizing fragrance of mystery and glamour wafting up through many of the novel's pages, which may be enough to compel a reader to keep tearing through them, especially a reader who lacks an all-acess pass to the Hollywood dream machine. But in setting out to overthrow an earlier model—in this case, a standard depiction of Hollywood as bleak, hollow, a screaming void—Specktor has instead managed to mimic that model, without reflecting its merits.—Jessica Winter