Dunne Tell-All Generates ‘Monster’ Sales

It’s not often that a book begins selling without any advance media exposure or appearances by an author, but that appears to be the case with “Monster: Living Off the Big Screen” by John Gregory Dunne.

The 203-page book is a scathing insider’s view of the process--perhaps “torture” is a better word--that Dunne and his wife, author Joan Didion, went through in bringing the script for what eventually became “Up Close and Personal” to the screen.

Originally, their screenplay was about the late Jessica Savitch, a TV news anchor whose career was destroyed by drugs and other problems. But the script emerged seven years later as a frothy box office romance starring Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer--a grim testimonial to the movie-making-by-committee syndrome and the low status of screenwriters in Hollywood.

Dunne’s revealing book, published by Random House, debuts this Sunday at No. 8 on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list, and full distribution in West Coast stores is not yet complete, said publicist Tom Perry.

As a measure of the encouraging early buzz, the publisher has ordered an additional 5,000 copies on top of the original 15,000 printed.

“We’re in very good shape, and [Dunne] hasn’t said one word yet,” Perry said, noting early positive comments in Harper’s Bazaar, the New York Post, US, Vogue, Kirkus Reviews and Booklist. Dunne, a New York author whose previous titles include “Playland,” “The Studio,” “True Confessions” and “Dutch Shea Jr.,” will embark on an ambitious publicity tour for “Monster,” making TV appearances and giving newspaper interviews.