Actors Anonymous

The actors in James Franco’s brilliant debut novel include a McDonald’s drive-

thru operator who spends his shift trying on accents; an ex-child star

recalling a massive beachside bacchanal; hospital volunteers and Midwestern

transplants; a vampire flick starlet who discovers a cryptic book written by a

famous actor gone AWOL; and the ghost of River Phoenix. Then there’s Franco

himself, who prowls backstage, peering out between the lines—before taking the

stage with fascinating meditations on his art, along with nightmarish tales of

excess. “Hollywood has always been a private club,” he writes. “I open the

gates. I say welcome. I say, _Look inside_.”

Told in a dizzying array of styles—from lyric essays and disarming

testimonials to hilariously rambling text messages and ghostly footnotes—and

loosely modeled on Alcoholics Anonymous’s Twelve _Steps and Twelve Traditions,

Actors Anonymous_ is an intense, wild ride into the dark heart of celebrity.