Fisher, Carrie. Postcards from the edge, New York : Simon and Schuster, 1987.

When Carrie Fisher wrote this comic and profound debut novel, she had known fame as an actress (through the Star Wars movie franchise) and as the child of Hollywood royalty: Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher. Postcards from the Edge is the prism through which she interprets her personal life, family and the movie industry, all realised with striking candour, pathos and wit.  Fisher chronicles her alter ego Suzanne Vale (in career and emotional meltdown) as she struggles with the fame game, drug addiction, relationship crises as well as deep-rooted family conflict, mostly involving her mother Norma, a thinly disguised Debbie Reynolds.

She delivers a late-Eighties portrait of Los Angeles that is no less revelatory of life lived in the fast lane, than that of the milieu of Jane Austen's Bath, a slower but no less problematic time.  Fisher's prose style is dialogue-driven and explores different formats: the first quarter of the book composed in diary form before switching to conventional third-person narrative. It hardly surprises that Hollywood promptly filmed this book (in 1990) or that Fisher wrote the screenplay; nor that she has penned a further five successful novels.  She continues to act in film and television.  As does her mother.

Collins, Jackie. Hollywood wives, New York : Simon and Schuster, 1983.

Jackie Collins broke into the big time with this unashamedly trashy novel.  To date it remains her biggest success...Hollywood Wives appeals to those readers who are interested in sex, fame and money, in other words just about everyone.

If the The Loved One is high literature then Collins's blockbuster is low literature.  Moreover, like Waugh, she knows her territory, makes her points and takes no prisoners.  This is a portrait of Reagan's America and a gallery of tacky charcters indulging in 1980s materialism, decadence and success-at-any price overkill in Tinseltown.

The prose style is uncomplicated which translates as anyone with a low reading ability can follow the story.  Expletives, drug references crime and lots of sex are the author's stock-in-trade.  It could be argued that Collins is the female Harold Robbins, who veered even more into the pornographic.

Hollywood Wives evolved into a mega mini series and was a ratings smash.  Collins has just published her 33rd novel.

Lambert, Gavin. The slide area: scenes of a Hollywood life, London : Serpent's Tail, 1997.

Gavin Lambert was ideally placed to delve into Hollywood's less public face, for he was a major force in the "dream factory",as a screen writer.  In his later years, Lambert moved into non-fiction and produced biographies such as Oh Cukor (a study of film director George Cukor) and film stars Norma Shearer and Natalie wood

He also wrote fiction - producing seven novels. The first of which was The Slide Area: Scenes of a Hollywood Life (1959), in fact more a collection of episodes than a novel.  It comprises 20 scenes of contemporary Los Angeles life in all manner of locations.  It is indeed a road map to fiction!

Lambert is unafraid of delving into the seedy side and his cast of characters feature the rejects of Hollywood, those who are in some way casualties of the fame game - or just life in general.  This work will to film students who seek inspiration in different forms of story-telling.  The language used is frank, original and often very funny.