Lester seems to give the side-eye to some of the characters in her novel, and you find yourself wondering how closely some of these folks might be modelled on current A-list stars. Yet she tempers this analysis with warmth and fondness for those who view filmmaking as a craft. Her observations are shrewd but sympathetic, as when she describes attendees at a lunch for Academy Awards Nominees:

Tables set for ten stretched for seemingly as far as the eye could see, and the old guard of Hollywood was beginning to trickle in: a lot of white-haired men of surprisingly small stature, and a few—very few—older women in bugle-beaded suits who still believed in the power of Aqua-Net. (p. 76)