Alfredo Hunter: The Man With the Pen

Why does Alfredo keep telling stories? He has a story and a title for all occasions of his experience: A Jew in Tunisia, The Bloomsday Blackout. . . but the Hollywood Moguls are not interested in Alfredo's stories; so he writes a masterpiece for the theatre about the last night on earth of James Joyce. This is an Irish novel set in Los Angeles. It tells the story of Alfredo Hunter, a depressive Jewish/Irish playwright who is in Hollywood to make a killing in the film business. We also meet the unknown narrator, who observes Alfredo's various fluctuations and swings of mood and humour. Humour is to the fore in this novel of a building friendship between two Dubliners as they encounter the New World, with its new language and confusing mores.