Only the dead know Burbank : a novel / Bradford Tatum.

Title:

Author:

Tatum, Bradford, 1965 March 29-

ISBN:

9780062428752

(softcover

acid-free

paper)

0062428756

Edition:

First edition.

Publication Info:

New York :

Description:

383 pages ; 21 cm

Summary:

"The original set of the 1925 production of The Phantom of the Opera still sits on the Universal lot in Hollywood. As legend has it, every time a crew has attempted to break it down, they've been met with freak accidents-as if some spirit still lingers in the old plywood and fading paint. Some say this spirit has manifested as a little girl that roams the lot after dark. She is waiting to tell the true ghost story behind the ones recorded on celluloid. It's a story that begins one hundred years ago-before Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff-with a German artist, his muse and the secret behind the birth of American horror. A young Maddie Ulm and her mother, cast out of their small German village due to her mother's dabbling in the occult, do their best to eke out a living. When Maddie is struck with the spanish flu, it's her mother's rituals that bring her back from death, but changed. Frozen at her young age and unable to die, Maddy fights for her place in the world. She starts to use her gifts as a sideshow attraction, dying and returning to life in increasingly elaborate ways. She quickly learns the value of her unique relationship with death, as she becomes involved in the nascent german film industry. Her talents are recognized, and she is invited to Hollywood, where she works with such greats as Lon Cheney and Boris Karloff, putting her mark on American Horror's foundational cinema, though her condition keeps her from achieving the credit and power she desires"--

Subject(s):

Motion picture industry -- California -- Los Angeles -- History -- 20th century -- Fiction.

Motion pictures -- California -- Los Angeles -- History -- 20th century -- Fiction.

Motion picture actors and actresses -- Fiction.

Horror films -- Fiction.

Immortality -- Fiction.

Holds: Copies (not including on-order items):

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Call Number	Shelf Location	Status	Item Holds
Searching... East Library	Book	TATU	Fiction	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

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Summary

"Classic horror buffs will race through this novel that blends historical fiction with uncanny elements of the gothic. A perfect read for Halloween." --BookPage

With Lon Cheney and Boris Karloff among its characters, this sweeping and stylish love letter to the golden age of horror cinema tells the wonderful, tragic story of Maddy Ulm. It takes readers through her rise from the complicated shadows of Berlin's first experiments with expressionist cinema to the glamorous deserts of Hollywood. For Maddy has a secret. A secret that has given her incredible insight into the soul of horror. A secret that has a terrible price as well.

A young girl awakens in a hastily dug grave--vague memories of blood and fever, her mother performing a mysterious ceremony before the world went away. Germany has lost the first great war and Europe has lost millions more to the Spanish Flu epidemic. But Maddy has not only survived, she has changed. No longer does she eat, sleep, or age. No longer can she die. After taking up with a pair of street performers, she shocks and fascinates the crowds with her ability to survive outrageous traumas. But at a studio in Berlin, Maddy discovers her true calling: film.

With her intimate knowledge of fear, death, and realms beyond the living, she practically invents the modern horror genre on the spot. Before long, she travels to California and insinuates herself in Hollywood as the genius secretly behind The Phantom of the Opera, Dracula, and Frankenstein. And yet she must remain in the shadows--a chilling apparition suspended eternally between worlds.

Clever, tragic, and thoroughly entertaining, Only the Dead Know Burbank introduces readers to one of the most unique, unforgettable characters in fiction.

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

In actor Tatum's unusual, captivating debut, set in Germany and the U.S. in the early 20th century, a woman cursed with immortality eventually finds comfort in filmmaking. Maddy Ulm narrates her story with a wry pragmatism that doesn't conceal her underlying melancholy over her unchanging condition, and her longing for the experiences and feelings that only mortals can have. Film proves to be her outlet, and horror her specialty. When one of her silent films is picked up by Universal Pictures, she heads from Bavaria to Hollywood and is soon working on some of the most famous movies of the age. Maddy loves the studio and delights in haunting the nooks and crannies of the sets, but her pervasive sense of loneliness is always evident, and she bears the crushing knowledge that she'll be forever trapped in the body of a young woman. Spanning the course of about 20 years leading up to the rise of Hitler, this bitingly witty and darkly vibrant concoction features an irresistible heroine, and the gorgeous, lush writing easily conjures the grit and glamour of golden age Hollywood. Maddy's story is crass, lyrical, and even tragic. Cameos by Lon Chaney and Boris Karloff will undoubtedly delight film buffs, as will the meticulously researched depiction of the dawn of filmmaking. Agent: Noah Ballard, Curtis Brown Ltd. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

How did Universal Pictures crank out so many deathless horror masterpieces in the 1920s and '30s? Tatum has an answer and deathless is the perfect word for it. A young German girl named Maddy is saved from Spanish flu death by a curse that makes her immortal. Like Claudia in Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire (1976), she's stuck in adolescence even as her intellect soars. A stint with street performers leads to her directing (uncredited) two early masterpieces of German expressionistic horror. Then it's off to Hollywood with her gentle-giant friend Mutter, who becomes the model for Karloff's portrayal of Frankenstein's monster. Karloff Billie, she calls him is one of Maddy's few friends, along with Lon Chaney, and it's Maddy's savvy editing that saves Phantom of the Opera, and her vampiristic insight that inspires Dracula. She's still a little girl, though (aka the Phantom of Stage Twenty-eight!), and credit always goes to weirdo Tod Browning or acidic James Whale. Maddy's iciness is thoroughly entertaining, assisted hugely by Tatum's erudite first-person prose and fierce commitment to his ambitious, outlandish premise.--Kraus, Daniel Copyright 2016 Booklist

Library Journal Review

As a child, Maddy Ulm wakes in a shallow grave near Vienna, her mouth sewn shut. She claws her way out, almost dies again, and finally finds refuge with a group of traveling players. Maddie is now an undead, never aging, and living a shadowy existence. From those early primitive theatricals she moves on to the fledgling German film industry and eventually to Hollywood at the dawn of the talking picture. Maddie's unnatural nature gives her an affinity for the horror genre, and she becomes the driving force behind classics such as Dracula and Frankenstein. She mixes with icons including Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney, but while she craves acclaim and success, her childlike appearance keeps her under the radar. The prose, while occasionally quite stylish, is slightly overstuffed. This problem smooths out as the story shifts into gear and the pathos of Maddy's being pulls readers in. VERDICT Fans of early film, especially of the horror variety, will be satisfied by this uneven yet intriguing novel by actor (Powder) and author (The Monster's Muse) Tatum.-MM © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.