Don Carpenter and A Couple of Comedians

Don Carpenter was a novelist and scriptwriter. His years in Hollywood gave him a special insight into the way Hollywood works and the three novels in The Hollywood Trilogy give us a look into the sometimes-glamorous, sometimes-vacuous and seedy world of the movie business. Starting w/ A Couple of Comedians (originally published in 1979)), let's talk about how Carpenter presents the world of 1970s-era Hollywood. What does it look like? What are the people like? What are the performers Larson and Ogilvie (the later, the narrator) like? Also, there are deaths of two old men in this novel, Ogilvie's grandfather at the beginning and the movie producer Max Meador at the end of the novel. What do you think Carpenter is doing w/ these two deaths?