Leading Man

In this shallow first novel about celebrity culture, Maxwell Lerner is a newly minted entertainment journalist for KNOW magazine. He lives with his childhood sweetheart, Samantha Kotter, an actress. But one day in 1994, Max reads in the newspaper that Sam, working at the Concord Theatre Festival, has fallen in love with her leading man, Johnny Mars, an ’80s action hero Max worshipped as a boy, sending Max into a tailspin. He tries to date, but doesn’t find anyone to take the place of Sam, who insists that she and Max become “pals.” As the ’90s become the aughts, Max nurses Sam through all sorts of crises in her marriage to Mars and makes a name for himself in the celebrity-interview game. But will Max end up with a true Hollywood ending? Svetkey’s tale is half romance and half roman à clef (he spent years as a celebrity interviewer for Entertainment Weekly), and reading about the celebrity scene of yesteryear is as rewarding as an old issue of EW. Max, sadly, is a little too callow to make us care whether he finds happiness, with or without his beloved Sam. Agent: Betsy Lerner, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner. (Aug.)