Bookseller Treasures His Tales of Tinseltown

Valley bookseller Tom Rusch fell in love with the Hollywood novel long before he moved here to its natural habitat.

In the 1970s he lived in Minneapolis--a nice town but short on starlets and palm trees--and it was there that he was first mesmerized by such masters of the genre as Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald.

When Rusch settled in Southern California 18 years ago, he began amassing Hollywood novels in earnest. And he decided he needed an appropriate name for the book business he operates out of his Sherman Oaks home.

It was a challenge because some of the best Hollywood novels are dark to the point of nihilism. Rusch reasoned that people would rather not patronize Day of the Locust or Sammy Glick Books. He also chose not to name his business after Sidney Alexander’s “The Celluloid Asylum.” Instead, he called the operation Monroe Stahr Books, in honor of the young studio head, modeled on Irving Thalberg, in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s unfinished masterpiece, “The Last Tycoon.”

Rusch now lives a few miles from the spot in Encino where Fitzgerald swore off gin and mainlined Coca-Cola to begin “Tycoon.” Even closer is the location in North Hollywood where “The Day of the Locust” author Nathanael West bought a house, long since razed, with his young bride, Eileen McKenney. The couple hadn’t even finished unpacking when they were killed in an auto accident Dec. 22, 1940, the day after Fitzgerald suddenly died of a heart attack.

Literary landmarks are all over Los Angeles, including the Valley. Many of the most notable writers of the 20th century showed up at 9 every morning, as required, at the Writers Building on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank. While they often regarded their screen work with contempt, they understood the deal: Unlike good reviews in obscure literary magazines, Hollywood salaries bought them time for serious work.

“They’re gonna pay me Saturday, they’re gonna pay me Saturday,” William Faulkner famously told himself before he persuaded Warner Bros. to let him write screenplays at home in Mississippi.

The gaudy, often surreal quality of life in Hollywood is wonderful fodder for a good writer, as the books on Rusch’s shelves attest. Here you’ll find such great Hollywood tales as Budd Schulberg’s “What Makes Sammy Run?” whose protagonist, Sammy Glick, is a ruthless schemer of the sort that still appears in the entertainment industry from time to time.

Biting the hand that feeds you is one of the special pleasures often afforded to writers of Hollywood novels. TV writer/producer Lee Goldberg has written two such books, “My Gun Has Bullets” and “Beyond the Beyond.” The first was based on a grim experience writing for an action-adventure show. Writing the book, he says, allowed him to vent in a nondestructive way and get paid for it.

“It was so frustrating, I could drink, I could take drugs, I could take a swing at the star,” he says--or he could go back to his hotel room and bang out a novel.

“They always say ‘Write what you know,’ ” he says. Look how hilarious Albert Brooks is when writing insider satires such as the movie “The Muse.” Brooks is less successful writing about, say, death, Goldberg argues, “because he drifted away from what he knows best--skewering the industry.”

Rusch is always happy to find books by insiders, such as “Hollywood Cemetery” by Liam O’Flaherty, who wrote the screenplay for “The Informer.”

Eclectic Specialties

Rusch estimates he has 7,000 books in his collection, most for sale online or by appointment. Not all are Hollywood novels. The 53-year-old bookseller also specializes in detective fiction, African American works and books on jazz. He buys and sells the collectible work of 20th century authors--known as modern firsts--and he has a few books on surfing.

When he is tracking down Hollywood novels (he gets most of his books from other dealers), Rusch often refers to his well-worn copy of writer Carolyn See’s 1963 doctoral dissertation on the subject. It contains both bibliographical information on more than 500 examples and her insights on the subject. Hollywood, in these books, represents both the American Dream and its underbelly. It is a glittering, unreal world in which luck counts as much as talent, and where it is easy to lose your way.

Rusch is partial to books about Hollywood written before 1970. His oldest is Charles E. Van Loan’s “Buck Parvin and the Movies,” from 1915.

Rusch also favors books with evocative covers. (He observes that “Day of the Locust”--a fine first edition can bring $2,500--doesn’t have a particularly attractive dust jacket.)

One irresistible book currently on his shelves is “Hollywood Virgin.” A bathing beauty from a less explicit era graces the cover. The copy inside the book jacket tells a familiar tale: “This is the true story of a girl who, at first young and innocent, had to cope with the unscrupulous and lustful men of Hollywood to win her way . . . For obvious reasons, the writer prefers to be anonymous.”

Rusch’s single favorite Hollywood novel is “Queer People,” written by Carroll and Garrett Graham and published in 1930. It is one of many novels that demystify the movie industry, depicting it as a world filled with more grifters and con men than artists.

Predictably, Rusch finds screenwriters to be some of his best customers.

“I have two serious collectors and maybe a dozen others who dabble,” he says.