I really enjoyed Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, savoring it for its “inside Hollywood” knowingness and its wishful recreation of the horrific events occurring on Cielo Drive in Beverly Hills on the fateful night of August 9, 1969, involving members of the so-called Manson Family and actress Sharon Tate. Also fascinating was the retro merchandise issued coincident with the film, and the promise of a novelization from the director.

A little over two years after the film’s premiere, I’m pleased to report that the novelization Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was well worth the wait, teeming with titillating historical dish on the Hollywood scene and scintillating background on each of the main characters, especially stoic stuntman Cliff Booth. Both a love letter to and critique of Tinseltown, the book, whose prose often seems to be channeling MWA Grand Master James Ellroy, also has the feel of a cheap 1970s paperback, complete with back page ads for Oliver’s Story and Serpico; the only thing missing is a cardboard insert hawking Red Apple cigarettes.