SOURCE: Dardis, Tom. Review of Writers in Hollywood, by Ian Hamilton. America 164, no. 4106 (2 March 1991): 252-53.

In the following review, Dardis offers a scathing critique of Hamilton's Writers in Hollywood. Dardis describes the work as unoriginal, offering no new information or ideas, and containing many factual errors.

The British-born writer Ian Hamilton, author of Robert Lowell: A Biography and In Search of J. D. Salinger, is fascinated with the United States and its culture. Salinger won a court victory over Hamilton for including his early correspondence without permission, thus resulting in a truncated book that disappointed publisher and readers. Now Hamilton turns his attention to the writers who served their time in what is now known as Hollywood's “Golden Age.” The results are meager, for Hamilton has conducted much of his research in libraries.

Writers in Hollywood is not marked by any degree of originality—Hamilton displays no fear...