NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • From the legendary actor and best-selling author: a novel about the making of a star-studded, multimillion-dollar superhero action film...and the humble comic books that inspired it. Funny, touching, and wonderfully thought-provoking, while also capturing the changes in America and American culture since World War II.
"Wild, ambitious and exceptionally enjoyable." —Matt Haig, best-selling author The Midnight Library, The Humans and Reasons to Stay Alive
Part One of this story takes place in 1947. A troubled soldier, returning from the war, meets his talented five-year-old nephew, leaves an indelible impression, and then disappears for twenty-three years.
Cut to 1970: The nephew, now drawing underground comic books in Oakland, California, reconnects with his uncle and, remembering the comic book he saw when he was five, draws a new version with his uncle as a World War II fighting hero.
Cut to the present day: A commercially successful director discovers the 1970 comic book and decides to turn it into a contemporary superhero movie.
Cue the cast: We meet the film’s extremely difficult male star, his wonderful leading lady, the eccentric writer/director, the producer, the gofer production assistant, and everyone else on both sides of the camera.
Bonus material: Interspersed throughout are three comic books that are featured in the story—all created by Tom Hanks himself—including the comic book that becomes the official tie-in to this novel’s "major motion picture masterpiece."
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • From the legendary actor and best-selling author: a novel about the making of a star-studded, multimillion-dollar superhero action film...and the humble comic books that inspired it. Funny, touching, and wonderfully thought-provoking, while also capturing the changes in America and American culture since World War II.
"Wild, ambitious and exceptionally enjoyable." —Matt Haig, best-selling author The Midnight Library, The Humans and Reasons to Stay Alive
Part One of this story takes place in 1947. A troubled soldier, returning from the war, meets his talented five-year-old nephew, leaves an indelible impression, and then disappears for twenty-three years.
Cut to 1970: The nephew, now drawing underground comic books in Oakland, California, reconnects with his uncle and, remembering the comic book he saw when he was five, draws a new version with his uncle as a World War II fighting hero.
Cut to the present day: A commercially successful director discovers the 1970 comic book and decides to turn it into a contemporary superhero movie.
Cue the cast: We meet the film’s extremely difficult male star, his wonderful leading lady, the eccentric writer/director, the producer, the gofer production assistant, and everyone else on both sides of the camera.
Bonus material: Interspersed throughout are three comic books that are featured in the story—all created by Tom Hanks himself—including the comic book that becomes the official tie-in to this novel’s "major motion picture masterpiece."
TOM HANKS has won Academy Awards for best actor for Philadelphia
and Forrest Gump. He has starred in, among many other films, Big,
Sleepless in Seattle, Apollo 13, Saving Private Ryan, The Green
Mile, Cast Away, Catch Me If You Can, Captain Phillips, Bridge of
Spies, Sully, Toy Story, The Post, and It's a Beautiful Day in the
Neighborhood. His writing has appeared in The New York Times,
Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker. He is also the author of a
best-selling collection of stories, Uncommon Type.
R. Sikoryak is a cartoonist and an author based in New York City.
His illustrations have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York
Times Book Review, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
"The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece is its own
universe, complete with a sun, a cast of circling planets, and a
limitless number of stars. Its gravity pulls you in and its far
reaching, multi-layered, rollicking exuberance holds you in place.
I would have been happy to live inside this book
forever." —Ann Patchett, best-selling author of These Precious
Days
"This is a wild, ambitious and exceptionally enjoyable novel. A
story about how stories happen, with a swirling kaleidoscope of
characters across the best part of a century, and a real beating
emotional heart. It has a lot of astute and fascinating things to
say about comic books, movies, show business, America and human
beings. I loved every page." —Matt Haig; author The Midnight
Library, The Humans and Reasons to Stay Alive
"An extravagant, buoyant, joyfully sprawling book, bursting with
affection for its characters, for the intricate lore of the movie
business, and for the many ways in which human beings are one
another's greatest opportunity." —Tana French, award-winning
novelist of In The Woods and The Searcher
"Do you want to go on an adventure? Who doesn't? This was a joy to
read in that certain kind of way that only happens when it was a
joy to write. Tom Hanks is such a natural storyteller that
everything feels like he's telling this story just for you, at a
dinner table, and you don't want the night to end." —Fredrik
Backman, author of A Man Called Ove
“With a unique insight and a rare eye for detail, Tom Hanks
delivers a stunning, emotionally satisfying tale about the art of
storytelling. I never wanted the lights to come up. I could not put
it down.” —Graham Norton
"Vibrant, jazzy, witty, snazzily written, with a great sense of
time and place, this novel-cum-comic book is one of those rare,
unique, pieces of fiction. Loved it."
—Kate Mosse; author of Labyrinth
"A thoroughly engaging tale....This is a story about what happens
behind the cameras. Hanks is at pains to impress upon us
that moviemaking is a circuitous process involving a vast network
of people — some famous, most not — showing up and doing their
best. This is most definitely not a novel about the magic of
filmmaking; it’s a novel about the hard work of filmmaking.... a
love letter to the industry....The longer you
watch Hanks create that glittery surface, the harder it
is to look away." —Ron Charles, The Washington Post
★ "We all knew he could act, but the publication of Hanks’
Uncommon Type, his excellent 2017 short-story collection, proved he
could write, too. Now he’s followed that with a full-length novel,
and it is superb.… The writing is spot-on, bringing to the novel
all the passion Hanks feels about his profession: “Making movies is
complicated, maddening, highly technical at times, ephemeral and
gossamer at others, slow as molasses on a Wednesday but with a
gun-to-the-head deadline on a Friday.” The whole book is like that:
lovingly crafted, a wildly entertaining story beautifully told. If
you love movies, you’ll love this book." —David Pitt, Booklist
(starred review)
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