Ten Days in the Hills - Jane Smiley

On the morning after the 2003 Academy Awards, Maxan Oscar-winning writer/director whose fame has wanedand his lover, Elena, are in bed, still groggy from last nights red-carpet festivities. They are talking about movies, talking about love, talking about the just-begun war in Iraq. But their house full of guests demands attention. Gathered downstairs are: Maxs ex-wife "the legendary Zoe Cunningham," a dazzling half-Jamaican movie star; their strong-willed daughter, Isabel; Maxs agent, Stoney, a too easy-going version of his now-departed agent father; Paul, Zoes new lover, an enigmatic healer; and a coterie of others. Over the next ten days they share their stories of Hollywood past and present , their fears provoked by the Iraq war; they watch films in Maxs luxury screening room; they gossip by the swimming pool and tussle in the many bedrooms, as the tension mounts and sparks fly.Inspired by Boccaccios Decameron, Ten Days in the Hills is an unputdownable novel about love, war, sex, politics, storytelling and, of course, redemption, by one of the most talented American writers at work today.

Jane Smiley is the author of eleven novels, as well as four works of nonfiction. She is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2001. She lives in Northern California.