Sunday, August 1, 2021
July Book of the Month: Silent Sin by EJ Russell
When tailor Marvin Gottschalk abandoned New York City for the brash boomtown of silent-film-era Hollywood, he never imagined he’d end up on screen as Martin Brentwood, one of the fledgling film industry’s most popular actors. Five years later a cynical Martin despairs of finding anything genuine in a town where truth is defined by studio politics and publicity. Then he meets Robbie Goodman.
Robbie fled Idaho after a run-in with the law. A chance encounter leads him to the film studio where he lands a job as a chauffeur. But one look at Martin and he’s convinced he’s likely to run afoul of those same laws—laws that brand his desires indecent, deviant… sinful.
Martin and Robbie embark on a cautious relationship, cocooned in Hollywood’s clandestine gay fraternity, careful to hide from the studio boss, a rival actor, and press on the lookout for a juicy story. But when a prominent director is murdered, Hollywood becomes the focus of a morality-based witch hunt, and the studio is willing to sacrifice even the greatest careers to avoid additional scandal.
Silent Sin is brilliant!
I've been looking for a story set in Old Hollywood for about 3 years and when this popped up in a FB group rec request I one-clicked immediately. 2020 screwed with my reading mojo so unfortunately I just got around to reading it and I loved it! EJ Russell really sets scene of the silent era, incorporating real historical facts and scandals that add just the right level of reality into her fictional story. Don't worry, Silent Sin isn't a tell-all, Hollywood documentary but it definitely shows the author's respect for the past with the balance of reality and fiction.
As for the characters, watching Robbie's journey from "runaway" country bumpkin to studio chauffer to stand-in to ???(well I don't want to give away all the lad's secrets😉) is an uplifting, heartfelt tale of entertainment. Seeing Martin's journey of trying to stay true to who he is and who he lets the studio bosses and fans see makes you smile, laugh, and a few times you just want to shake him. When their paths cross you just know that it's fate but you also know it won't be easy but it will definitely be captivating. You can't help but want to wrap them both up in Mama Bear Hugs and tell them everything will be okay, of course there are a few times I want to smack them too and scream but that's what makes Silent Sin such a delight.
I have featured some of EJ Russell's books on my blog before but Silent Sin is my first read. For me it's the perfect introduction to a new author, Sin ticks so many of my boxes:
historical✅romance✅Old Hollywood✅friendships✅author's respect for the era✅plenty of heart✅
I have to admit one of my favorite moments comes between Robbie and Martin's manager Sid, the actual activity happens off-page but we learn about it and it put the biggest smile on my face and a loud "YES!" in my internal monologue. Just another example of how the author has written more than romance and how sucked into the story I became.
Again, Silent Sin is brilliant!
Chapter One
July 28, 1921
Robbie slid the last crate of fruit out of Mr. Samson’s truck and only wobbled a little as he handed it off to a grocer’s assistant on the dusty Bakersfield road. He took off his battered straw hat, wiped the sweat off his forehead with the side of his arm, and settled the hat back on his head. Not that it kept out much sun—it was more holes than straw by this time.
Mr. Samson, the orange grower Robbie had been helping for the last two days, strolled out of the little store, tucking a wallet into his back pocket. Robbie snatched his hat off his head again.
“Will there be anything else, sir?”
“Not here.” Samson’s gaze slid away from his. “Don’t have the cash to pay you anything now, but I might have something for you back home at the groves.” He nodded at the truck. “I’ll give you a lift.”
Robbie’s empty belly sank toward his toes, but he forced a smile. He’d learned in the last six weeks that the promise of a job rarely translated into money in his pocket, even if he actually did the work. A lift with the promise of work at the end of the ride—anything that got him farther from Idaho, really—was more than he could hope for. “Thank you, sir.” He stumbled toward the truck cab.
“Hold on, you. Not up front.” Samson jerked his thumb toward the truck bed. “Back there. But give us a crank first.”
Robbie nodded and scuffed through the dirt, where a pebble worked its way through the hole in the bottom of his right boot. He waited for Samson to get behind the wheel and then gave the handle a practiced crank. The engine caught, and the truck belched exhaust. Robbie hurried to the rear before Samson could change his mind about the lift too.
As he was about to scramble over the tailgate, he spotted half a dozen discarded half-squashed fruits—a lemon and five oranges—almost beneath the wheels. He scrabbled them out of the dust, rolled them into the truck bed, and heaved himself in after them. The jerk when Samson put the truck in gear nearly sent Robbie over backward, but he grabbed on to one of the rough slats that bracketed the bed to save himself, driving a sliver into his thumb.
He crawled forward, herding his contraband in front of him until he could sit with his back to the cab. As the truck jounced along, raising clouds of dust in its wake, Robbie gathered the precious fruit in his lap and hunched over his knees. Fingers trembling, he tore into the skin of the first orange and dropped the peel through the slats. He shoved the first section into his mouth and moaned as the tart juice hit his parched mouth and throat. Squashed or not, this is pure heaven. How wonderful that people can grow something this marvelous, let alone make a living at it.
His last meal was nothing but a hazy memory, so he ate one fruit after another—even the lemon, so sour it made his eyes water—as the string of discarded peels fell behind, a trail of gold dimmed by dust.
After he polished off the last orange, he licked his fingers. Then he picked at the sliver in this thumb as he tried to dodge puddles of fermenting juice whenever Mr. Samson took a corner too sharply. The exhaustion of weeks of rough travel, most of it on foot, caught up with him, and he fell into a fitful doze.
With a bone-rattling thump, the truck pulled to a stop. Robbie blinked, disoriented, and peered around in the glare of the setting sun. Where are we? His heart sank when he took in the sturdy buildings lining both sides of the road. A good-sized town. He tried to keep to open country whenever he could—less chance of getting work, but easier to find a stream for a drink and a wash or a secluded barn where he could catch enough shut-eye to go on the next day.
Mr. Samson slapped the side of the truck. “End of the line, kid.”
Robbie scrambled to his feet and wiped his hands on his trousers, not that it did much good. His pants were as sticky as the truck bed.
He hopped down onto the road and caught the tailgate when a wave of dizziness threatened to take him down for the count. “Thanks for the lift. I appreciate it.”
Mr. Samson tilted his cowboy hat back and scratched his forehead. “No skin off my nose. You were a good worker. But turns out, now I think about it, I don’t need any help on the farm.” He shrugged. “Sorry.”
“I understand. Thanks anyway.” He wished he hadn’t fallen asleep on the ride. He had no idea where he was. “Does this road lead to Mexico?”
Mr. Samson hitched his dungarees up under his prosperous paunch. “Whatta you want to go there for? Nothing you can get there that you can’t get here.”
“Where’s here?”
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Hollywood.”
Robbie shaded his eyes with one hand and scanned the storefronts across the road. Hollywood Dry Goods. Hollywood Haberdashers. Hollywood Drug Store. “I guess it is.”
With a touch of his hat brim, Mr. Samson climbed into his truck. “Give us another crank, will you?”
Robbie complied and then backed away as the truck rattled off up a side street.
What the heck can I do in a place like this? Robbie doubted his years of scratching out a living on a potato farm would qualify him for work in some other grower’s orange grove. There weren’t any factories that he could see, and Hollywood Haberdashers wouldn’t hire somebody with only one set of clothes—and those almost too worn to be decent.
Mexico still seemed like the best bet, but suddenly he couldn’t muster the energy to take the next step or cadge the next lift or scrounge the next dime.
So he shoved his hands in his empty pockets, forced his back straight, and strode down the sidewalk as though he truly had someplace to go, as though he wasn’t adrift or as castaway as his namesake—Robinson Crusoe Goodman. He shook his head as he followed the route Mr. Samson’s truck had taken, away from the main street and up a slight hill. Ma sure had some odd notions when it came to naming her sons. Eddie had been lucky. At least Pa had put his foot down over Oedipus.
At the back of Mr. Samson’s orange grove, Robbie found a wooden shack worthy of his old man’s farm and secured with nothing but a two-by-four across its door. He slipped inside and blinked until his eyes adjusted to the gloom after the brightness of the westering sun. The dirt floor was littered with arm-long sections of metal pipe as big around as his head, and a stack of broken crates leaned against the wall like a rummy who’d never heard of the Volstead Act—not the most comfortable flop but better than he had any right to expect.
He curled up on the floor with his back to the wall, arms wrapped across his belly, and begged sleep to take him before he cried.
*******
“I’m not working with Boyd Brody again, Sid. I can’t.” Martin Brentwood met his own gaze in the mirror over the drink cart in his living room. God, he looked like ten miles of bad road. “He tried to drown me.”
Sid Howard, Martin’s manager, emerged from the kitchen, drying his hands on a dish towel. “Come on, Marty. He was just kidding. Giving you the business, same as he does with any actor. You can’t take this personal.”
“I damn well do take it personally. He’d never try that shit with Fairbanks.”
“Shite.”
Martin frowned at Sid. “What?”
“A baronet’s son from Hertfordshire wouldn’t say ‘shit.’”
“But I’m not a baronet’s son from Hertfordshire.” Martin sloshed more gin into his glass. “That would be you. Me? I’m only a tailor’s apprentice from Flushing.”
Sid tossed the towel on top of the piano and pried the glass out of Martin’s grip. “No. That would be me. And don’t forget it, even when we’re alone. Even in your own head. It’s easier to remember the lies if you live ’em full-time.” Sid sniffed the contents of the tumbler and made a face. “And don’t drink this shit. You’ll go blind.”
“I’ll have you know this gin was brewed in Barstow’s finest bathtubs.” Martin shuffled to the davenport and flopped down on the cushions. “But you’re right.” He bared his teeth. “It’s shite.”
“That’s more like it.” Sid settled in the wingback chair across from Martin. “So. I met with Jacob Schlossberg today.”
“Better you than me,” Martin muttered. “I loathe the bastard, and the feeling is decidedly mutual.”
“Maybe. But the reasons for the hate are different. You hate him because he’s—”
“A pontificating blowhard with delusions of grandeur and the morals of a weasel?”
“Because,” Sid raised his voice over Martin’s, “he’s the one who controls your career.”
“He’s not the only one. Ira owns half the studio.”
“Yeah, but Ira’s the talent-facing brother. Jacob’s got his sausage-like finger on the studio’s financial pulse. And when it comes down to it, at Citadel Motion Pictures, money’ll trump talent every time.”
Martin snorted. “So much for art.”
“Pictures aren’t art, Marty. They’re business. Big business. And if nobody pays to see your picture, it don’t matter if it’s as arty as the Russian crown-fucking jewels.”
“Really, Sid,” Martin murmured. “Your language.”
Sid grinned. “Unlike some, I don’t forget who I’m supposed to be.” Sid folded his hands on his knee, and no matter how much he might be able to ape a working-class stiff from Queens, if anybody in Hollywood paid attention, his hands would give him away. Tailor’s apprentices didn’t have the kind of practiced grace that had been drilled into Sid when he was busy getting kicked out of every prep school in England.
“As I said, I met with Jacob today.”
“And?”
Sid’s heavy brows drew together. “He and Ira are split on whether they want to re-up your contract. Ira’s liked you since he brought you in from Inceville and put you in a suit instead of a cowboy hat. He thinks you’re the best bet the studio has to counter Valentino. But Jacob… well….”
“I know, I know. He hates queers.”
“Nobody knows for sure that you’re queer, Marty.” Sid’s scowl said, “And keep it that way” louder than words could. “Anyway, Jacob may hate queers personally, but he depends on them too, as long as they’re in their place.”
Martin’s snort was a low-class sound, but nobody could hear him except Sid, who already knew the truth. Sid had invented Martin’s backstory. Hell, Sid had lived Martin’s backstory and he’d traded it with Martin’s when it became obvious which one of them could make a go of it in pictures.
“Right. In wardrobe. In the art department. Where the public never sees.”
“It’s not the invisibility that he cares about. He covets their taste. He knows he’s got none. He’s a stevedore’s son from the Bronx. He craves sophistication, so you’ll keep delivering it, because the only thing Jacob really hates is a threat to his profits. You can be as queer as Dick’s bloody hatband and he wouldn’t care as long as your pictures make money. But they won’t make money if your fans turn away. Remember what happened to Jack Kerrigan.”
“Kerrigan’s popularity dropped because he made that asinine comment about being too good to go to war, not because he’s queer.”
“Exactly. But with the Hollywood press in their back pocket, the studio didn’t lift a finger to save him. He’d become a liability with all his talk about no woman measuring up to Mother, and his lover tucked cozily away downstairs, masquerading as his secretary. You don’t want to be in that position.”
Martin pinched his eyes closed. “If it’s not because they suspect I’m in the life, then what is it? The cocaine? Because I told you, I’m never taking that stuff again, no matter how much the studio doctor prescribes.”
“No. It’s because of your last driver. What was his name? Homer?”
“Vernon, actually.”
“Right. Well, they don’t like that you fired him.”
“I fired him because he was a manipulative son of a bitch who saw driving a studio car as a sure way to stardom, provided he could fuck the right people.”
“Swive.”
“What? Are you telling me a baronet’s son wouldn’t say fuck?”
“Baronets’ sons definitely do, especially when imprisoned at boarding school with dozens of other baronets’ sons. But Martin Brentwood, leading man and one of Hollywood’s finest gentlemen, does not.”
Martin leaned his head on the cushions. “Jesus, Sid. Don’t you ever get tired of the act?”
“I’ll keep up with the act as long as it pays the bills. And so will you.” Sid crossed his legs. “I met with Ira too. He needs you back in to do retakes on that pro-Prohibition picture you wrapped last week.”
Martin groaned. “Good lord. Must we pander to the temperance unions and morality clubs even more? Wasn’t it enough that I died horribly in the gutter at the end?” Martin should have gotten a clue about where his career was headed when he was cast as the drunken lout instead of the fellow who heroically takes an axe to the kegs of evil whiskey.
“It has nothing to do with your performance. There were light flares in some of the scenes, and the cutter can’t fix it.”
“Very well. I’ll return tomorrow to die again.”
“Good. They expect you at ten.”
“Ten.” Martin cracked open an eye. “That’s a civilized hour, but how am I supposed to get there? No chauffeur, remember? The studio still won’t let me drive, and you refuse to learn how. I’d take the streetcar, but—”
“No. The last time you tried that, you nearly caused a riot.” Sid stood up and collected his briefcase from the ormolu side table. “I’ll contact the studio. They’ll assign you a driver, although you may have to share.” He lifted one perfectly straight eyebrow. “You’re not Valentino, after all. Yet.”
“Isn’t it grand that I don’t want to be, then?”
Sid sighed. “Marty, you need to think about your image. The studio’ll only protect you as long as you’re an asset, and you’ll only be an asset if—”
“If I make Jacob enough money.”
“If you don’t make their job harder. Having a car at your disposal twenty-four hours a day is more of a temptation than you need right now.”
Martin pushed himself upright with clenched fists. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Lay off the steak and pinochle parties with Bill Taylor and George Hopkins. Stay away from Pershing Square. The only reason Homer—”
“Vernon,” Martin murmured.
“—was a real threat was because he suspected what was really going on there. If one of those jokers decides to spill to the press—”
“They wouldn’t. Nobody who’s in the life would ever give me away. We don’t do that to one other. Not ever.”
“That’s what everyone says until the first time. If anyone suspects the truth—”
“Truth? This is Hollywood, Sid. Truth is what the fan rags print, and the studios have all of them in their back pockets, cheek by jowl with their string of crooked cops.”
“Maybe. But you can’t depend on that lasting forever. Remember Kerrigan.” Sid settled his straw boater on his head. “A studio driver’ll pick you up tomorrow by nine thirty. I’ll take care of it.”
Martin heaved himself to his feet to walk Sid to the door. “Thanks, Sid.”
“And next time? If you’re gonna fire your driver, at least make sure you wait until he takes you home.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Sid grabbed Martin’s wrist, his dark eyes serious. “I mean it, Marty. Be careful. This may be your last chance at Citadel, but if you pick the wrong man, you may not have another chance at anything.”
Martin opened his mouth to argue, but Sid walked out before he could gather his thoughts. He stood in the doorway as Sid strode down the sidewalk, the July sun beating down on the dusty boxwood hedges that lined the bungalow court.
Damn it, he’s right.
The places where it was safe to be a man who preferred men were few—New York, San Francisco, Hollywood. And even there, security was an illusion. The only thing that shielded them was the total obliviousness of most of the country. Hell, they didn’t even have a word for it.
In the life. A nice, nondescript phrase that could mean anything. But to the men and women who sought their partners from their own gender, its very blandness was the only thing that stood between them and ruin, scandal, imprisonment… worse. With sodomy laws on the books in every state, the punishment for a conviction could be positively medieval.
Martin shuddered, and as he wandered back to the drink cart, the streetcar bell clanged on Alvarado. I’ve still got some of my costumes from my vaudeville days. I could take the trolley to Pershing Square. Just for a little while. If he dressed in the rough clothes of a dockworker or the cheap suit of a salesman, nobody would know him for Martin Brentwood, movie star.
He leaned his forehead against the wall, excitement warring with shame in his belly. One last time. Without a driver, nobody would know.
So much of being a star was in behaving like one. Presenting yourself like a person who would prompt people in middle America to shell out their dough for the privilege of watching you caper around on a screen for an hour or two. Hell, he’d heard United Artists was going to charge a two-dollar admission for Fairbanks’s next picture.
It was nuts.
It was nuts, but Sid was right. It paid the bills—his and Sid’s. He owed it to them both not to destroy his career, not to destroy his life. Because the sailors in Pershing Square might be thrillingly rough, but you never knew where they’d been. The last thing he needed was a case of the clap. Sid was right about that too.
Martin wandered over to his desk. He had a pile of fan mail that needed answering. He probably should do that—he had few enough fans left. He’d best keep the faithful remnants happy.
With one last sorrowful glance at the gin bottle, he sat down and picked up his fountain pen.
Multi-Rainbow Award winner E.J. Russell—grace, mother of three, recovering actor—holds a BA and an MFA in theater, so naturally she’s spent the last three decades as a financial manager, database designer, and business intelligence consultant (as one does). She’s recently abandoned data wrangling, however, and spends her days wrestling words.
E.J. is married to Curmudgeonly Husband, a man who cares even less about sports than she does. Luckily, CH loves to cook, or all three of their children (Lovely Daughter and Darling Sons A and B) would have survived on nothing but Cheerios, beef jerky, and satsuma mandarins (the extent of E.J.’s culinary skill set).
E.J. lives in rural Oregon, enjoys visits from her wonderful adult children, and indulges in good books, red wine, and the occasional hyperbole.
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