Hollywood, Ending

Hollywood, Ending follows two young actors, Juniper Castillo and Kai Laramie, whose friendship and eventual romance develop while they make and promote a prestige film about Andy Warhol. What begins as a backstage Hollywood story gradually becomes a novel about childhood abuse, ambition, celebrity, trauma and the uncomfortable way the entertainment industry turns people’s most intimate experiences into marketable stories. This summary is based on the uploaded uncorrected advance readers copy.

In 2019, twenty-two-year-old Juniper Castillo arrives in Pittsburgh to shoot Andy Warhol Never Gets Old. She has acted since she was six and remains best known as Janie, the character she played for years on the children’s series Star Catcher. Her transition to adult acting has been difficult: her most recent film flopped, an older cinematographer she was dating dumped her, and she fears Hollywood is already beginning to think of her as a former child star. Her mother has also recently died, leaving Juniper with complicated grief rather than uncomplicated sorrow.

The Warhol film may save her career. Superstar Matthew Malone plays the aging Andy Warhol; Juniper plays Carly, a young journalist profiling him shortly before his death; and twenty-one-year-old newcomer Kai Laramie plays Jude, a Warhol intern who becomes Carly’s love interest. Juniper meets Kai in their hotel lobby and is immediately struck by his beauty and charisma. He is inexperienced and terrified of being exposed as an amateur, whereas Juniper finds movie sets more comfortable than ordinary life. She has been working since childhood and knows how to transform anxiety into professionalism.