Hollywood Decameron

In her Huffington Post blog, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jane Smiley describes her 12th fictional outing as a 'remake' of Boccaccio's Decameron. 'Not in 657 years has there been a novel like Ten Days in the Hills!' she quips, before pushing on with the sales pitch. 'As you may know, Boccaccio was not shy about sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and I do love The Decameron!'
If it's been a while since you visited the 14th-century classics section of your local library, let me remind you that Boccaccio's allegorical work featured 10 folk who fled to rural Fiesole as the black death prowled the streets of Florence. In 10 days they tell 100 stories - many of which Boccaccio makes significantly more complicated than they appeared in their traditional forms.
advertisementSmiley has shifted the scene to Hollywood, 2003, the day after Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine won an Oscar. In retreat from news that America and her allies have just invaded Iraq, a screen siren, a New Age guru, an unsuccessful agent, a militantly vegetarian daughter, an old friend who supports the war, a laconic Jamaican former mother-in-law and her Hollywood anecdotalist pal, a girlfriend and her off-the-rails son converge at the sprawling hillside mansion of a has-been movie director called Max.