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The Cutting Rooms
Laurence Klavan Book Review

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Plot Summary of The Cutting Rooms
"The Cutting Room

Ballantine, Feb 2004, 23.95, 288 pp.
ISBN 0345462702

There is a whole culture of “Trivial People,” men and women who are linked by a common interest in movie arcana . There purpose, other than to socialize, is to find lost films or series that are missing from movies that were produced and shown to the public. The most valuable prize a trivial person can find is the long lost version of the original The Magnificent Ambersons the one that the studio cut whole scenes out of while Orson Welles was in South America.

Roy Milano, one of the trivial people and proud of it, gets a phone call from Alan Gilbert who tells him he has the film and is willing to show it to him. When he gets to Alan's apartment, he is dead and the film is missing. A movie radio host has a tip that a famous movie star has the film and is going to star in the remake. Roy follows the trail of the missing film that takes him from Hollywood to Spain, back to L.A. and onto Boston where he becomes entangled in a politician's deadly web.

Laurence Klavan has such a unique voice that if readers were given a manuscript without the author's name, they will recognize it was written by him. In pursuit of a film, the protagonist finds some himself in some hair-raising situations but even the danger does not deter him from trying to get the one object that will make him the envy of trivial people everywhere. THE CUTTING ROOM is witty and irreverent yet also pays homage to the golden age of movies.

Harriet Klausner

"

Harriet Klausner, Resident Scholar



Review Analysis of The Cutting Rooms
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot

Composition of Book
descript. of violence and chases - 10%
Planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 40%
Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 30%
How society works & physical descript. (people, objects, places) - 20%




Tone of story - suspenseful (sophisticated fear)
Time/era of story: - present (2000-2010)
Kind of investigator - amateur citizen investigator
Kid or adult book? - Adult or Young Adult Book
Any non-mystery subplot? - searching for $$$/treasure
Crime Thriller Yes
Murder Mystery (killer unknown) Yes

Main Character
Gender - Male
Profession/status: - writer
Age: - 20's-30's
How much violence does he/she use? - a little
Ethnicity/Race - White/American
How sensitive is this character? - middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Smarter than most other characters
Physique - very athletic

Main Adversary
Identity: - Male
Age: - 40's-50's
Profession/status: - mastermind
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in: - a moderate amount
Motive of antagonist - money/treasure
How sensitive is this character? - hard edged
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Smarter than most other characters
Physique - very athletic

Setting
United States Yes
The US: - Northeast - California
Europe Yes
European country: - Spain

Style
Person - mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death? - generic/vague references to death/punishment
How many deaths? - 3-4
Amount of dialog - significantly more dialog than descript
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