Shimmering Follicles, Velvet Pancakes

Megan Abbott reports of her copy of our current Doomed Book Club selection, "whenever you lift the book, turn a page, or look at it with a squinty eye, crumbling paper follicles shimmer off it, into your hands." The Hollywood producer who really exists has the same hardcover edition, "follicles and all," the cover of which he says "depicts a Fritz Lang-esque metro landscape with skyscraper against an orange sky. Chilling." Incidentally, he breakfasted this morning on "red and blue velvet pancakes." RED AND BLUE VELVET PANCAKES! That's how they do it in Hollywood, baby. The cover illustration of my mass-market paperback shows Vic Norman in his suspenders, with cigarette and black tousled hair, working hard on writing an ad in his private train compartment, despite a woman in a silk robe fiddling with the radio and trying to scooch up next to him.