Book Review: The Close-Up by Pip Drysdale

The Close-Up by Pip Drysdale is an electrifying and twisty new novel in which a struggling author discovers the dark side of fame when a stalker begins reenacting violent events from her thriller. Keep reading for Doreen's review.

When Zoe Ann Weiss signed her first book deal, it only made sense for her to move from her dreary home in England out to the Hollywood sunshine. After all, her book was being optioned for film, and there was a good chance that she’d be hired on to adapt the screenplay herself. Plus who could resist the glamour, and weather, and light of Southern California?

But nothing quite worked out as she intended. A serious case of writer’s block pushed back the completion of her novel, an obstacle she was only able to overcome finally with the not entirely welcome help of heartbreak. While still agonizing over her writing, she wound up spending three magical days with Zach Hamilton, a bartender and aspiring actor she thought she’d really connected with. He, however, ghosted her. To add insult to injury, he went on to become Hollywood’s next big thing, starring in an action blockbuster that meant that she was never far from being reminded of him, whether on the Internet or while minding her own business in the supermarket checkout line.

On the bright side, Zoe was able to parlay her emotions over the end of their relationship into finally completing her novel. Now she’s on the hook for her next book and facing yet another seemingly insurmountable case of writer’s block. So when she runs into Zach at a Hollywood party, it seems like fate has given them both a second chance, even if Zoe is understandably a bit more ambivalent about it than Zach is:

“I can’t believe you were just going to leave me there. But let’s go to my place. I think you’ll love it.” And then he squeezes my knee.

 

And as embarrassing as it is to admit, that’s all it takes.

 

I forget everything else. Because this is exactly what I need to hear. That someone like Zach would choose me over Kenneth and Solange and every other face I’ve seen on TV and commercials and billboards. Because if he wants me, even for just the night, maybe, just maybe, I’m worth something after all. 

Being involved with Zach is very different the second time around. Zoe has to sign a non-disclosure agreement, and his many commitments means he has a lot more people surrounding him than before. Public interest in their relationship is also vastly different, with Zoe finding herself splashed across the tabloids despite their best efforts to stay private. Social media is also vicious, though the sudden spotlight does increase sales on her debut novel, much to her agent’s delight.

But when someone leaves a threat ripped straight out of the pages of that same book on her van’s windshield, Zoe will have to start reconsidering everything she knows. Her novel Fractured was about a demented stalker angry at the protagonist’s relationship with a new man. Could someone be so upset that Zoe’s dating Zach that they’re mirroring the events of her own book back to her? 

Yet even in spite of her fear, Zoe quickly finds the seed of a story germinating within her. While she genuinely cares for Zach, she desperately needs the inspiration that being in his orbit gives her, so she lies to her agent about the next book she’s allegedly writing, based on the recent twists in her personal life:

And then we hang up and I look back over at Zach’s house and, shit, what the hell am I going to write about? And also, I like Zach and I don’t want to break his trust. But I just pitched a book that I have no idea how to write, especially in three weeks–that’s only twenty-one days. Not unless I can use Zach and his world and our quasi-relationship as material… Even then, it’ll be a struggle–I may have an idea, but I don’t know what the story is. And oh shit, I signed that NDA; I’ll need to be super opaque…

 

But that’s okay; I’ll just use him as inspiration. A springboard. I mean, I’m a writer–I’ll just do what writers do: blur the details and make it up… I can do this.

As the lines between fiction and reality grow increasingly vague, will Zoe be able to navigate the treacherous path in front of her? Or will she become the next victim of someone highly motivated to commit murder, before she has a chance to get even the tiniest sliver of her story out?

A paean to both Los Angeles and writing, this is the perfect book for anyone who enjoys either. The Close-Up beautifully melds a classic Hollywood thriller with a delightfully modern feat of metafiction, as Zoe works out her story on the page. This authorial sleight of hand makes the events chronicled within feel all the more immediate, though there are certainly parts where Zoe’s dithering had me yelling at the book in frustration. That’s a good thing though, as it really underscores how invested I was in her journey. Zoe is realistically flawed, and Pip Drysdale takes pains to show readers exactly why so that we can sympathize deeply with our heroine, no matter what strange and terrible things she ends up going through.

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