Gods and Monsters

An aging film director in 1957 Los Angeles retreats into a house of memories as the industry that once worshipped his monsters moves on. When a handsome ex marine arrives to tend the gardens, a tentative friendship becomes a lifeline that wakes longing, guilt, and the ghostly pull of past fame. Tender, uneasy, and sometimes darkly comic, the novel navigates memory, creativity, and the cost of living as an outsider in a city that both idolizes and erases you. Evocative and quietly brave, it asks what it takes to claim joy and intimacy later in life while carrying the weight of secrets and art.

~ Included for its compassionate portrait of queer longing, late life intimacy, and Hollywood history, and for how it remembers a gay artist whose life and work were shaped by secrecy and love. ~