Sweet Smell of Success: The Short Fiction of Ernest Lehman Book

Best known as the basis for the classic film starring Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster, and soon to be a major Broadway play, Sweet Smell of Success is a dark and gripping novella about media manipulation and the will to get ahead--by any means necessary. Lehman scathingly depicts the dark side of success through the twisted relationship of Sid Wallace, an ambitious publicist, and Harvey Hunsucker, a powerful and vindictive gossip columnist, fashioned after Walter Winchell. As scandals are manufactured and reputations ruined for sport, the story spirals downward toward one last, savage act of revenge. As brutally honest as Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust, Sweet Smell of Success is one of the most enduring and provocative stories in the literature of show business.This collection of the long out of print fiction of Ernest Lehman also includes the novella The Comedian, a scathing portrait of the sordid private life of a famous funnyman. The book is rounded out by a series of off-beat and brilliant tales about Broadway and the big time that ruthlessly dissect the world behind the bright lights and happy endings.Read More