Silent Extras

Arnon Grunberg

If you are young and horrified at the thought of living a mundane life, then this may be the book for you. Ewald, the narrator, seems a bit of a wimp as he follows the exotic Elvira and enigmatic Broccoli around Amsterdam, in their quest to become the biggest stars Hollywood has ever known. There are plenty of eccentric characters to keep you entertained, but I did find the going a bit tedious at times.

Extract

I was eighteen and I wanted to be someone else, preferably in front of hundreds, thousands of people. In fact, most preferably in front of a rolling camera. Brocolli also wanted to be someone else in front of a rolling camera. After all, if no-one can see you've become someone else, what good is it? Now and then Brocolli threw his arm around my shoulder and said: 'We're going to be stars of the silver screen, there's no two ways about it.'

Parallels