Silver Lake

Description

It was on a fully dark February night when I went to the Communists Daughter to meet a friend who never showed that my life in movies began.So begins the third installment in a series of standalone novels about the life and travels of Aubrey McKee. Set in Toronto and Silver Lake, a creative neighbourhood in Los Angeles, the novel chronicles with infectious lan Aubreys journey from broken-hearted derelict to B-movie production assistant, comedy writer, and science-ction screenwriter, all the way up to feature lm director. Along the way, he encounters long-ago childhood friends, manic producers, NHL players turned talk show hosts, Victorias Secret models, impulsive movie stars . . . and his own rising destiny.Praise forSilver LakeAlex PugsleysSilver Lakeis sharp and hilarious and illuminates a world of vivid characters all too familiar to me.Mark McKinney,The Kids in the HallandSuperstoreOne of the smartest, funniest vivisections of youthful Hollywood arrival Ive ever read. With an ear for dialogue to rival Richard Price, a cool eye for the towns foibles both ancient and modern, and a thoughtful sensibility that refuses to slide into caricature, Pugsley is my new favourite writer.Matthew Specktor, author ofThe Golden HourTerrific . . . infused with a generosity of spirit for the weird and hopeless dreamers who come from places like Tennessee or Toronto and find themselves caught up in the star-making machinery . . . At the heart of my enjoyment is the fact that Aubrey McKee is interesting and plain good company. His life is both ordinary and extraordinary, and the storytelling holds those seeming opposites in pleasing tension.John Warner,Chicago TribuneI cant praise Aubreys character enough. Hes one of those irresistible narrators who energizes and shines on the page with his self-deprecating, comical, wistful personality. Hes like a cool beach breeze blowing across the film industrys high-strung, ego-infused, competitive hot sand. The novel sings with his inner reflections, often poignant, sometimes anguished, and dependably real . . .Silver Lakeis a glittering achievement.Kassie Rose, The Longest ChapterTo readSilver Lakeand its depiction of the entertainment industry in Toronto and LA in the early aughts is to be immersed in a world that the streamers and our digital overlords are rendering as obsolete as Balzacs Paris, of course. Indeed, imagining a character like Poppy Price today conjures visions of botoxed, startled looking ciphers signing autographs at Comicon conventions. Its hard to imagine Aubreys fate as any more glamorous. YetSilver Lakeis hardly as downbeat as all that; its a poignant, beautifully written look back at an era when one could still have illusions to lose in such a business, and aspirations the equal of McKeesand Pugsleystalent.John Delacourt,Seaboard Review of BooksPugsleys tone throughout is wry and self-aware, the ideal combination for capturing Aubreys mix of ambition and angst. Pugsleys nearly three decades of experience in film and television lend the novel a healthy dose of realism. For anyone whos followed Aubreys story inAubrey McKee(2020) andThe Education of Aubrey McKee(2024), this is an entertaining step forward, and for those new to his journey, it will almost certainly provide encouragement to hop on for the rest of the ride. A smart, witty Hollywood tale.Kirkus ReviewsThe tenor of the times suggests that a smart, hilarious and sometimes gleefully adolescent spleen vent of a novel might be especially welcome. Safe, broad, and obvious funny is everywhere. Smart squirmy funny can be hard to find. The Aubrey McKee trilogy from Alex Pugsley is damn near perfect.David Worsley, Words Worth Books (Waterloo, ON)Ive recommended each of Alex Pugsleys novels as theyve been released, and I expect to keep doing so until he stops publishing them. In this one, his recurring stand-in, Aubrey McKee, jumps from the Canadian theatre scene to Hollywood, where glamor can occasionally be glimpsed in the spare moments away from his soulless screenwriting gigs. At this point Im not sure how else to praise these bookshis storytelling has a naturalness that makes them feel told off the cuff rather than written, though of course thats the result of tremendous skill. I may be at a loss for words, but thankfully Pugsley is not.James Crossley, Leviathan Bookstore (St Louis, MO)Praise for theAubrey McKeeSeriesAubrey, captivated as much by his lovers eccentricities as he is by her striking beauty, strives with equal energy to penetrate the mystery of a life thats been damaged by her abuse. But even as Aubrey believes hes come to terms with the emotional schizophrenia of our relations, when Gudruns career takes a turn that propels her in an exciting creative direction, he finds himself ill-prepared to cope . . . A realistic portrait of a complex romance between two mismatched but sympathetic characters.Kirkus ReviewsA fun and fascinating read from start to finish,The Education of Aubrey McKeecontinues to showcase author Alex Pugsleys genuine flair for original, distinctive, and narrative driven storytelling style.Midwest Book ReviewAlex PugsleysThe Education of Aubrey McKeeis alive with raucous humour, drunken abandon, soul searching and soul-crushing crushes. Full to the gills with art making and poetry and TV scripts written on spec, posturing and the true thing. Every page is feverish and suave. Pugsley is the love child of Jack Kerouac and Greta Gerwig, or D.H. Lawrence and Wes Andersonticklingly funny and dead serious at the same time.Lisa Moore, author ofThis Is How We LoveThis amazing book is nothing in turnsinstead it is everywhere continuously lyric, hilarious, and heartbreaking. The promise of Alex Pugsleys nonchalant epic, as of this second entry, is worthy of crazy comparisonsBalzac, Jonathan Coe, etc . . . Pugsleys project operates on a similar double-scale, always wittily precise, even sometimes zany in the particulars, yet with the sense that a picture of time itself has been captured, through windows in front of which his portrait-subjects merely happen to be seated.Jonathan Lethem, author ofBrooklyn Crime NovelThe novel has an inventive structure, beginning with a short story set sometime in the future about Aubrey working as a writer on a sketch-comedy show and ending with a play by Aubrey.Publishers WeeklyEvoking comparisons in both style and substance to the work of John Irving and Robertson Davies in its assemblage of perceptive, richly detailed character studies . . . The life of a Canadian city is revealed with verve and insight.Kirkus Reviews