Mr. Wilder and Me by Jonathan Coe

A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE

“Outstanding.”—Alex Harvey, Los Angeles Review of Books

“Captivating…A delight.”—Malcolm Forbes, Washington Examiner

“A really warm and wonderful and fun and happy book.”—NPR’s All Sides with Ann Fischer

“Beautifully written and filled with compassion, humor and an abundance of knowledge about old Hollywood, Mr. Wilder and Me sheds light on lives that aren’t perfect but still well lived.”—Bookpage

A naive young woman called Calista finds herself working for the famed Hollywood director Billy Wilder, about whom she knows almost nothing. While Calista is thrilled with her new adventure, Wilder himself is living with the realization that his star may be on the wane.

In a novel that is at once a tender coming-of-age story and an intimate portrait of one of cinema’s most intriguing figures, Jonathan Coe turns his gaze on the nature of time and fame, of family and the treacherous lure of nostalgia.

“In its own quiet way, the novel is as odd as the movie it describes: part Hollywood biopic, part Holocaust memoir, part middle-class domestic drama.”—Benjamin Markovits, The New York Times Book Review

“Life-affirming, genuinely affecting, sublime, Mr. Wilder and Me is a joy to read.”—Now Toronto