āAn ambitious and warmhearted first novelā (Entertainment Weekly) from Owen Kingāthe epic tale of a young man coming to terms with his life in the aftermath of the spectacularly bizarre failure of his first film.
SAM DOLAN is a young man coming to terms with his life in the process and aftermath of making his first film. He has a difficult relationship with his father, B-movie actor Booth Dolanāa boisterous, opinionated, lying lothario whose screen legacy falls somewhere between cult hero and pathetic. Allie, Samās dearly departed mother, was a woman whose only fault, in Samās eyes, was her eternal affection for his father. Also included in the cast of indelible characters: a precocious, frequently violent half-sister; a conspiracy-theorist second wife; an Internet-famous roommate; a contractor who canāt stop expanding his house; a happy-go-lucky college girlfriend and her husband, a retired Yankees catcher; the morose producer of a true-crime show; and a slouching indie-film legend. Not to mention a tragic sex monster.
Unraveling the tumultuous, decades-spanning story of the Dolan familyās friends, lovers, and adversaries, Double Feature is about letting go of everythingāregret, resentment, dignity, moving pictures, the deadāand taking it again from the top. Against the backdrop of indie filmmaking, college campus life, contemporary Brooklyn, and upstate New York, Owen Kingās epic debut novel combines propulsive storytelling with mordant wit and brims with a deep understanding of the trials of ambition and art, of relationships and life, and of our attempts to survive it all.