Mercury Pictures Presents

A smart satiric novel about Hollywood in the 1940s, war, fascism and personal drama -- ISABEL ALLENDE * Daily Mail, Best Reads of 2022 * Crackling with wit and suffused with insight, Anthony Marra's new novel is as epic in sweep as a movie set yet delineates the inner workings of the human heart with a miniaturist's precision. Mercury Pictures Presents explores the endless give-and-take between life and art, the cost of integrity, and the ways we must make peace with the past in order to move forward toward the future. . . . A genuinely moving and life-affirming novel that's a true joy to read -- CELESTE NG Smart, heartfelt, and sneaky funny, Mercury Pictures Presents has all the breadth and power of an epic, and the attention to detail of an intimate conversation. I read it in a state of admiration for the beauty Anthony Marra has wrung from the English language -- SARA NOVIC, author of GIRL AT WAR and TRUE BIZ A novel so rich and wondrous, written with such grace and wit, that there's only one word for Anthony Marra: a genius -- SALLY MANN, author of HOLD STILL, finalist for the National Book Award Achingly beautiful . . . You laugh, then you sigh, then you weep. Extraordinary -- LUIS URREA, bestselling author THE DEVIL'S HIGHWAY and THE HUMMINGBIRD'S DAUGHTER Mercury Pictures Presents is a wonder - intimate and sweeping, heartfelt and satirical, one of the funniest and most moving novels I've read in a long time. A novel of fascism, war, and refugees finding freedom through art and storytelling, it's both a joy to read and highly relevant to our times -- JESS WALTER, #1 New York Times bestselling author of BEAUTIFUL RUINS and THE ANGEL OF ROME Marra brings his considerable gifts for scope and scene to early Hollywood, animating, as he does so thrillingly, the city, the players, the war, and the repercussions of small and huge actions on families, fates, countries, and film. And: this fully-realized world is also really funny! I laughed aloud many times, even as I marveled -- AIMEE BENDER, author of THE PARTICULAR SADNESS OF LEMON CAKE Anthony Marra is a writer of boundless talent: he is a top-notch historian, a razor-sharp social critic, a deeply sensitive psychologist, and an exuberant satirist - all at the same time . . . A singularly pleasurable read - smart, sad, hilarious, and always full of heart -- NATHAN HILL, bestselling author of THE NIX It is impossible to do justice to Marra's smooth, sweeping style in bits - viewed in isolation, such descriptions could easily seem overwrought and clumsy - but knit together, these pieces have striking command and authority * International New York Times * The author's fans will recognize his elegant resolution of tangled disasters, his heartbreaking poignancy, his eye for historical curiosities that exceed the parameters of fiction... Marra unspools this period comedy with so much old-time snappy wit that Mercury Pictures Presents should come with popcorn and a 78-ounce Coke * Washington Post * You'll laugh, you'll cry in the marvelous 'Mercury Pictures Presents' about 1940s Hollywood * San Francisco Chronicle * Summer is a time for blockbusters and Anthony Marra has delivered the goods with Mercury Pictures Presents, a sweeping book about 1940s Hollywood, Mussolini's Italy and America's entry into the second world war . . . a deft and convincing writer with a sharp turn of phrase and a dark sense of humour that ignites every page... [It] will win him committed new fans and, if there is any literary justice, prizes * Spectator * Its inventive prose pulses with humour, wit and affection * Mail on Sunday * Marra's glowing prose brings the intricate story to life, and his chapter-and-verse world-building will thrill Golden Age devotees * Sight and Sound * A bravura work and a real thrill-ride * The Crack Magazine * Funny, verbally inventive and, ultimately, very moving, Mercury Pictures Presents is a wonderful novel * Sunday Times, Historical Fiction Book of the Month * An excellent holiday read -- TOM SUTCLIFFE * BBC Radio 4 Front Row * The success of Mercury Pictures Presents, both the novel and the Hollywood entity it depicts, is evanescent and ambiguous, enduring and clear all at once. Whether Artie, the showman, and Maria, the book's historical anchor and ethical conscience, will survive is one question, but the ideas posed by Marra's novel assuredly do, and they resonate all the more strongly through our own contemporary, distressingly fascist-adjacent, moment * New York Times *