The most puzzling thing about [a:Anthony Marra|5989255|Anthony Marra|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1650470662p2/5989255.jpg]'s [b:Mercury Pictures Presents|59109471|Mercury Pictures Presents|Anthony Marra|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1653944786l/59109471.SY75.jpg|93011532] to me is that I didn't see it on everyone's top ten works of fiction of 2022. It's brilliant and informative. I don't particularly like show business novels, but to call this one of those is inaccurate.
 It mostly takes place during World War II in California and Italy.
 Mercury Pictures has enough wit for four books. It's consistently very funny without being snarky.
 Here's an excerpt in which the main character Artie, a movie studio head, reflects on parenthood and his young son, who has been urinating in Artie's laundry hamper:

 Having kids in this country ... you might as well open a looney bin for uninsured anarchists. The noise, mess, and mutiny, they were goddamned rabble-rousers, his three kids, protesting everything from bedtime to vegetables. Every parent is a failed dictator; it was nearly enough to inspire admiration for the real ones. A few years back, before Mussolini joined himself to Hitler's hip like a colostomy bag, Artie had read Il Duce's autobiography for parenting tips. It was written in semiliterate bombast, its pages damp with autocratic spittle, the reading experience akin to literary lobotomy, and yet, Mussolini's leadership style made for inspired parenting ideas. Artie had imposed curfews and pledges of fealty. But here you had Billy, performing nocturnal reconnoitering of Artie's laundry hamper like a resistance fighter ready to blow the railway depot. If Artie wasn't so embarrassed, he might have been halfway proud of the little renegade.