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title: "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: The First Novel By Quentin Tarantino"
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# Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: The First Novel By Quentin Tarantino

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desertcart.com: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: The First Novel By Quentin Tarantino: 9781398706132: Tarantino, Quentin: Books

Review: I never saw the movie, but I read the book - I'm not a fan of Quentin Tarantino in the traditional sense. I've never seen a Quentin Tarantino movie. But I like the guy and I was intrigued by the project: a novelization of a movie delivered in packaging consistent with the era. Publishing a book as a cheap trade paperback was genius and Harper Collins should be commended for going along with Tarantino's inspiration. It works. The book is a good read with several parallel (ultimately intersecting) storylines that arrive at what I can only assume is essentially the beginning of the movie. And, with some knowledge of history, the reader knows what happens after The Last Chapter. Tarantino adeptly weaves history and story together in a way that leaves you wondering on every page, "did that really happen?" You are definitely going to ask, "Is that how the military teaches people to kill other people in hand to hand combat?" and "Was Bruce Lee really like that?" The reader learns insider lingo and gets on-set access to spaces and places, personalities and moments in history known only to the most insider of Hollywood insiders. It's probably good that most of the people featured in the book are dead. I suspect they'd have some things to say about how they are portrayed. Tarantino grants some VERY personal nods in this novel - to his step dad, to the guy who gave him his first dog, and to the fact that The Fourteen Fists of McCluskey (aka Hell River 1974) was his favorite movie when he was very young. There's a personal storyline running through the novel for the author. The Hollywood featured in the novel is Tarantino's Hollywood, the Hollywood of intersecting lives and disposable people. And if the author can be known by the world he creates on the page, reading this gives you a view into the mind of Quentin Tarantino you would not otherwise have. I think I understand why all his movies are shot from one camera: it's literally the way HE sees the story. His admiration of Roman Polansky is clear (230-231) and any question about why Tarantino bought The New Beverly is answered (217) as are a million other questions you would have asked about Hollywood if you'd known to ask them. Three criticisms: the break in the narrative from pages 110-116 might have been handled differently; the backstory of Pussycat is unnecessarily repeated; and Jesus never wrote poetry (163). I saw one typo on page 151 should end with "they call that acting." Also, if you have ANY sensitivity to language, this book is NOT for you. If you have sensitivity to derogatory descriptive language of people (women, gay men, people from Japan, etc), sex, parts of the male and female anatomy...this book is NOT for you. I suspect that only Quentin Tarantino could get away with saying many of the things said in this book. That said, ethical questions are raised in the subtext of this novel on nearly every page. The character and story development are masterful and the book leaves you wanting to know more about what happens next. Which is exactly what a 1978 novelization of a movie is designed to deliver.
Review: A Little Fiction, A Little Nonfiction, A Lot Of Tarantino - This is not a novelization of Tarantino's film Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. There are scenes from the movie depicted here, greatly expanded with much more background material about the characters, their thoughts, and in some cases what happened as a result of those scenes (sometimes years later). But there are also many scenes that weren't in the movie, and some key scenes from the movie are treated as unimportant side scenes here. The book roughly follows the movie's structure, but with a few major changes. The result is a completely different experience, but an enjoyable and entertaining one. Essentially, this is Tarantino writing down and fictionalizing the many stories he's heard about 1960s Hollywood from people like David Carradine, Kurt Russell, Robert Forester and others. (He acknowledges this on the dedication page.) There's a lot about how Hollywood worked in the 1960s in terms of how actors were cast, how stuntmen were treated, and so on. It's a fascinating look at a world long gone by, with references to actors, places, radio stations, TV shows and more that will mean little to someone not steeped in Hollywood history, but he still makes it interesting. He has his fictional characters interact with real people (Sharon Tate, Roman Polanski, Charles Manson), which gives him license to take us into the minds of those people. It's a bit of a tightrope walk, but he pulls it off, I think. He also goes off on tangents, telling stories about real people (like the actor Aldo Ray) that could have happened but didn't really. In some cases these tangents really do nothing to advance the plot, but they're fun to read nonetheless. It's an era of Hollywood that Tarantino clearly knows a lot about, and his insights have some validity, even as fiction. The book also allows him to write mini-essays on various filmmakers and genres, putting his thoughts (we assume) in the minds of his fictional characters. These are also fascinating to read. All in all, this is a great book for fans of Quentin Tarantino, old Hollywood, or show business stories in general.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #1,631,484 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #106 in TV, Movie & Game Tie-In Fiction #368 in Screenplays #573 in Movie Director Biographies |
| Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 9,944 Reviews |

## Images

![Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: The First Novel By Quentin Tarantino - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/816IcAVAkIL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I never saw the movie, but I read the book
*by C***E on June 29, 2021*

I'm not a fan of Quentin Tarantino in the traditional sense. I've never seen a Quentin Tarantino movie. But I like the guy and I was intrigued by the project: a novelization of a movie delivered in packaging consistent with the era. Publishing a book as a cheap trade paperback was genius and Harper Collins should be commended for going along with Tarantino's inspiration. It works. The book is a good read with several parallel (ultimately intersecting) storylines that arrive at what I can only assume is essentially the beginning of the movie. And, with some knowledge of history, the reader knows what happens after The Last Chapter. Tarantino adeptly weaves history and story together in a way that leaves you wondering on every page, "did that really happen?" You are definitely going to ask, "Is that how the military teaches people to kill other people in hand to hand combat?" and "Was Bruce Lee really like that?" The reader learns insider lingo and gets on-set access to spaces and places, personalities and moments in history known only to the most insider of Hollywood insiders. It's probably good that most of the people featured in the book are dead. I suspect they'd have some things to say about how they are portrayed. Tarantino grants some VERY personal nods in this novel - to his step dad, to the guy who gave him his first dog, and to the fact that The Fourteen Fists of McCluskey (aka Hell River 1974) was his favorite movie when he was very young. There's a personal storyline running through the novel for the author. The Hollywood featured in the novel is Tarantino's Hollywood, the Hollywood of intersecting lives and disposable people. And if the author can be known by the world he creates on the page, reading this gives you a view into the mind of Quentin Tarantino you would not otherwise have. I think I understand why all his movies are shot from one camera: it's literally the way HE sees the story. His admiration of Roman Polansky is clear (230-231) and any question about why Tarantino bought The New Beverly is answered (217) as are a million other questions you would have asked about Hollywood if you'd known to ask them. Three criticisms: the break in the narrative from pages 110-116 might have been handled differently; the backstory of Pussycat is unnecessarily repeated; and Jesus never wrote poetry (163). I saw one typo on page 151 should end with "they call that acting." Also, if you have ANY sensitivity to language, this book is NOT for you. If you have sensitivity to derogatory descriptive language of people (women, gay men, people from Japan, etc), sex, parts of the male and female anatomy...this book is NOT for you. I suspect that only Quentin Tarantino could get away with saying many of the things said in this book. That said, ethical questions are raised in the subtext of this novel on nearly every page. The character and story development are masterful and the book leaves you wanting to know more about what happens next. Which is exactly what a 1978 novelization of a movie is designed to deliver.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A Little Fiction, A Little Nonfiction, A Lot Of Tarantino
*by R***S on August 29, 2021*

This is not a novelization of Tarantino's film Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. There are scenes from the movie depicted here, greatly expanded with much more background material about the characters, their thoughts, and in some cases what happened as a result of those scenes (sometimes years later). But there are also many scenes that weren't in the movie, and some key scenes from the movie are treated as unimportant side scenes here. The book roughly follows the movie's structure, but with a few major changes. The result is a completely different experience, but an enjoyable and entertaining one. Essentially, this is Tarantino writing down and fictionalizing the many stories he's heard about 1960s Hollywood from people like David Carradine, Kurt Russell, Robert Forester and others. (He acknowledges this on the dedication page.) There's a lot about how Hollywood worked in the 1960s in terms of how actors were cast, how stuntmen were treated, and so on. It's a fascinating look at a world long gone by, with references to actors, places, radio stations, TV shows and more that will mean little to someone not steeped in Hollywood history, but he still makes it interesting. He has his fictional characters interact with real people (Sharon Tate, Roman Polanski, Charles Manson), which gives him license to take us into the minds of those people. It's a bit of a tightrope walk, but he pulls it off, I think. He also goes off on tangents, telling stories about real people (like the actor Aldo Ray) that could have happened but didn't really. In some cases these tangents really do nothing to advance the plot, but they're fun to read nonetheless. It's an era of Hollywood that Tarantino clearly knows a lot about, and his insights have some validity, even as fiction. The book also allows him to write mini-essays on various filmmakers and genres, putting his thoughts (we assume) in the minds of his fictional characters. These are also fascinating to read. All in all, this is a great book for fans of Quentin Tarantino, old Hollywood, or show business stories in general.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Less a novelization, more of a companion piece, but undeniably a labor of love
*by J***E on July 20, 2021*

It’s legitimately a little hard to know how to review Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino’s first ever novel and, theoretically, a novelization of his film of the same title, because more than anything, I’m not sure the book works at all except as a companion piece to the film. This isn’t simply a transcription of the film (although there are some chapters which basically serve as that, and they’re undeniably the weakest points of the book). Indeed, the book seems to have a perverse lack of interest in retelling the story of the movie; take, for example, the way that the film’s climax never occurs in these pages, only being addressed in a passing conversation during a longer section in which Tarantino is exploring what happened to his characters after the film ended. (That this happens a quarter of the way through the book, instead of the end, is equally fascinating.) What that means is that anyone looking for a conventional retelling of the film, or a novelization that maybe just peppers in some deleted scenes, is going to come away disappointed. Instead, what you get is far shaggier and looser, following the very loose arc of Rick Dalton’s time shooting the pilot of Lancer even as Tarantino jumps back and forth in time and through different perspectives. We get a lot of background on Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth, as Tarantino puts into words all of the subtext that often orbited around the character (and often makes it a bit harder to reconcile with Pitt’s laconic, charismatic performance – or maybe just more troubling). We get more depth on Dalton’s career, with film stories a plenty, and a sense of what happened to him outside the boundaries of the film. We see Sharon Tate hitchhiking to Hollywood, and we see some of Pussycat’s earlier experiences with the Manson family. In other words, what you’re almost getting here is a sense of the larger world and background that Tarantino had in mind before he started to film, which allows you a window into how he creates characters, how he conceives of his story, and so forth. This isn’t really a novel, in other words; or, rather, it’s one that’s fairly aimless and loose, wandering down rabbit holes and drifting through time in an incredibly loose sense. That emphasizes some issues along the way (it makes the Manson family thread of the plot feel even more extraneous than it did in the film, and while some of the glimpses of Sharon Tate are interesting, she too feels like a storyline that never grips Tarantino the way that Rick and Cliff do), but it also plays into the biggest strength of the film: that desire to simply hang out in a Hollywood era that came and went, one that was already fading by this point but got pushed even further by a horrific series of events. That desire to hang out in the era is what Once Upon a Time in Hollywood best succeeds at, as Cliff wanders through his first exposures to Japanese cinema, or as Rick grapples with the explosion of spaghetti westerns, or old actors trade stories about the legends they once knew. Tarantino allows himself to drop names and figures from history in here, but also allows himself to do so in ways that acknowledge some realities, like the painful fall from grace of Aldo Ray or the realities of what it’s like to be best known for the roles you didn’t get. There’s more heart here than you might expect from Tarantino, down to the unexpected final chapter of the book, which involves nothing more than a conversation and a scene between peers, and feels like a love letter to the power of film and the craft of acting. Are there loose ends aplenty? Undeniably. Tarantino’s choice to basically novelize the plot of Lancer is a neat idea, but one that probably isn’t necessary in the least; the Manson scenes, as I already mention, feel entirely tacked on and unneeded, a fact that’s only exacerbated by the (good) choice to barely acknowledge the film’s ending. More than that, any time Tarantino is basically transcribing his action or his scenes, you’re more than aware of his weaknesses as a writer – his dialogue attributions are flat, his descriptions rocky, his prose…functional. Once he’s describing the minds of his character, or looking out at a movie theater, or letting his creations banter, you can feel his gifts shining through, but it’s hard to imagine novelist being a full-time career for him. Even so, I really enjoyed Once Upon a Time in Hollywood a lot. It’s rocky and it’s shaggy and it’s got some weaknesses. But it’s also a labor of love, and when you’re lost in Hollywood 1969 politics and screen rules, or being reminded of how great pulp Westerns could be, or seeing characters like Cliff and Rick get more fleshed out and brought to life (particularly Cliff, warts and all), it’s hard not to feel Tarantino’s excitement pulling you along. “Come hang out with me,” he seems to be saying – sometimes almost literally. Is the book essential? Does it replace the film? Is it even capable of standing on its own? I’d say “no” to all of those. But as a companion piece, it’s compelling and brings out the love of cinema and storytelling that Tarantino has always displayed, and I loved that about it.

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