Wasson…delivers a vivid narrative, weaving together portraits of four seriously flawed men—Towne, Polanski, Evans and Nicholson—who came together just once to create a near-perfect work of art.

The film Chinatown was meticulously designed to capture a precise moment in Los Angeles's history. Everything about its look and feel says 1937, not 1936 or 1938. In the same way…Sam Wasson's deep dig into the making of the film, is a work of exquisite precision. It's about much more than a movie. It's about the glorious lost Hollywood in which that 1974 movie was born…[The Big Goodbye is] a scrupulously researched and reported book with a stellar cast of players…[Wasson] is one of the great chroniclers of Hollywood lore. And he has truly outdone himself this time.

If you love Chinatown, then you’ll love The Big Goodbye―and it’s good reading for any American cinema buff.”
―Kirkus Reviews

“Inimitable Wasson…argues convincingly that Chinatown was one of the last great Hollywood films… this portrait of a neonoir classic will cast a spell over cinephiles.”
―Library Journal, starred review

"Wasson…is one of the great chroniclers of Hollywood lore. And he has truly outdone himself this time."
—The New York Times

"One of the best things about this audiobook is author Sam Wasson's narration. His modulation and timing are as good as any professional narrator's, and his use of accents provides subtle shading to everyone from John Huston to Henry Kissinger."
—AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award Winner

★ 12/01/2019

Inimitable Wasson (Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.) examines the development of the iconic film Chinatown (1974), beginning with the months leading up to the murder of director Roman Polanski's wife, Sharon Tate, in 1969. Robert Towne began writing a neo-noir screenplay about political corruption and a disturbing family dynamic that echoed the disarray in Washington, DC, and the pall cast over Hollywood after the Manson family killings. Robert Evans was already a successful producer, yet he was dedicated to his vision for Chinatown, his first independently produced film. Jack Nicholson, Towne's longtime friend, was coming into his own; Towne crafted the main character around the actor's talents. Each of these men brought distinct strengths to the project. Wasson nimbly guides us through their battles over the story and the score, and the infamous clashes between Polanski and the brilliant lead, Faye Dunaway. Wasson argues convincingly that Chinatown was one of the last great Hollywood films; in the years following its release, the industry shifted from a dream factory realizing ambitious visions to a corporate machine churning out blockbusters. VERDICT On par with Wasson's exceptional Fosse, this portrait of a neonoir classic will weave a spell over cinephiles.—Peter Thornell, Hingham P.L., MA

One of the best things about this audiobook is author Sam Wasson's narration. His modulation and timing are as good as any professional narrator’s, and his use of accents provides subtle shading to everyone from John Huston to Henry Kissinger. Wasson builds his narrative around the four friends who created the movie CHINATOWN: director Roman Polanski, screenwriter Robert Towne, producer Robert Evans, and actor Jack Nicholson. Wasson combines the backstories (and backbiting) of these four men with the history of L.A. to create a tapestry of Hollywood's unhappy endings. His remarkable research (for example, the tragic inspiration for the movie’s "My sister, my daughter" dialogue) provides a maze of details that, by the audiobook's end, fit perfectly into place. This audiobook succeeds as a Hollywood history lesson and a primer on how creative collaboration can lead to a masterpiece. R.W.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

2019-11-05
A biography of the making of Chinatown, which scriptwriter Robert Towne called "a state of mind."

In his latest, Los Angeles-based film chronicler Wasson (Improv Nation: How We Made a Great American Art, 2017, etc.), who has written about Bob Fosse, Audrey Hepburn, Blake Edwards, and Paul Mazursky, undertakes a multifaceted dissection of the infamous noir film starring Jack Nicholson. Produced by Robert Evans and written by Towne, Chinatown was directed by the "brilliant tyrant" Roman Polanski. Throughout the book, Wasson treats the film as a masterpiece, an arguable but reasonable assessment, and delineates his biographies of Nicholson, Evans, Towne, and Polanski in the context of the film specifically. The author adeptly illustrates how each man brought his own experience of contemporary Hollywood to the film though the story is arguably a more accurate depiction of 1930s Hollywood than any noir film recorded in that time period. Wasson portrays drugs and crime in a matter-of-fact manner befitting the movie itself, and he doesn't minimize or romanticize any of the less-than-savory elements involving the principals of the narrative; this applies especially to Polanski. The author weaves into the text details about the Tate-LaBianca murders and their effects on not only Polanski, but the city as a whole. He shows how the phrase "That's Chinatown" was not just a memorable motif in the movie, but also a reflection of the visceral emotions roiling LA at the time of the film's release. "Since the murders," writes the author, "the communal dream of social and political reformation that had illumed the sixties had blackened, almost on cue, at the decade's turn." As Towne said, "there are some crimes for which you get punished, and there are some crimes that our society isn't equipped to punish, and so we reward the criminals." Through Wasson's thorough research, this book clearly illuminates that concept.

If you love Chinatown, then you'll love The Big Goodbye—and it's good reading for any American cinema buff.