Novel written by Michael Chabon in 1995 that was adapted into a movie in 2000 by Paramount Pictures. The movie stars Michael Douglas, Katie Holmes, Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, and Robert Downey Jr. and is filmed in and around Carnegie Mellon University. The movie is an apt rendering of the 368-elongated-page novel. Necessary scenes were deleted, developed, and changed. The casting was excellent. The music was superb.
According to the novel's blurb:
Grady Tripp is a middle-aged philanderer with a penchant for pot and failed marriages, who is unable to complete the long-awaited follow-up to his award-winning novel. His brilliant student James Leer is a troubled young writer obsessed with Hollywood suicides and prone to fabrication and petty thievery. In their odyssey through the streets of Pittsburgh, Grady and James are joined by Grady's pregnant mistress, his hilariously bizarre editor and an achingly beautiful student lodger. The result is a wildly comic, poignantly moving and ultimately profound search for past promise, future fame and a purpose to Grady's life.
Essentially the novel is a state of mind. Over the course of a weekend a lot of shit happens making for a good 368-page read.