Big Red: A Novel Starring Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles

Jerome Charyn

Aug 2022 · Highbridge Audio · Narrated by Natalie Duke

About this audiobook

Since he first appeared on the American literary scene, Jerome Charyn has dazzled readers with his "blunt, brilliantly crafted prose" (Washington Post). Yet Charyn, a beloved comedic novelist, also possesses an extraordinary knowledge of Golden Age Hollywood, having taught film history both in the United States and France. With Big Red, Charyn reimagines the life of one of America's most enduring icons, "Gilda" herself, Rita Hayworth, whose fiery red tresses and hypnotic dancing graced the silver screen over sixty times in her nearly forty-year career. The quintessential movie star of the 1940s, Hayworth has long been objectified as a sex symbol, pin-up girl, and so-called Love Goddess. Here Charyn, channeling the ghosts of a buried past, finally lifts the veils that have long enshrouded Hayworth, evoking her emotional complexity-her passions, her pain, and her inner turmoil. Reanimating such classic films as Gilda and The Lady from Shanghai, Big Red is a bittersweet paean to Hollywood's Golden Age, a tender yet honest portrait of a time before blockbusters and film franchises-one that promises to consume both Hollywood cinephiles and neophytes alike. Lauded for his "polymorphous imagination" (Jonathan Lethem), Charyn once again has created one of the most inventive novels in recent American literature.

About the author

Jerome Charyn is the author of more than fifty works of fiction and nonfiction. He has received the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and his novels have been selected as finalists for the Firecracker Award and PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. He lives in New York.

Natalie Duke is a SOVAS and Emmy Award-winning voice actor with over 100 audiobooks to her name. She specializes in snark, sass, and sarcasm, but can artfully portray a wide range of emotions and personalities. Natalie lives in Chicago with her spouse, kids, and too many pets.