December 15, 2019: Actually, it turns out that Diana Altman’s novel We Never Told—which I review in the Portland Press Herald today; see?—isn’t about Old Hollywood at all. But when I read somewhere that the narrator’s dad worked out of New York for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, I wanted in. You know whose dad also worked out of New York for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer? Diana Altman’s. She wrote about it in Hollywood East: Louis B. Mayer and the Origins of the Studio System, which I have never read and do not own—good news for you because now you know what to get me for Christmas. You’re welcome!