THE HOLLYWOOD NOVEL INSIDERS DRAW ON THE DARK SIDE FOR BOOKS SET IN INDUSTRY'S BACK YARD.

Byline: David Kronke Staff Writer

Iranians have a word, ``taaruf,'' which means ``ceremonial insincerity,'' the act of saying something and not meaning it, of extending offers of kindness the recipients should have the savvy to know are not truly intended.

Sort of amazing Hollywood doesn't have its own word for ``taaruf,'' isn't it?

Nonetheless, ``taaruf'' is a concept pervasive in the Hollywood novel. How odd is it that there exists an entire oeuvre of books dedicated to an industry that, above all, discourages reading in favor of more passive entertainment?

``This is the only place on Earth where there is what I call a 'geographical locus' for literature in the Hollywood novel,'' says Bruce Wagner, a filmmaker (``I'm Losing You,'' based on his novel) and author. His latest is ``The Chrysanthemum Palace'' (Simon & Schuster; $23), about three adult children of media royalty who have both used and been restricted by their parents' fame and have essentially underachieved within the industry. They're brought together to appear in a ``Star Trek''-style series created by the father of the book's narrator.

``They don't say, 'New York novel,' 'Brooklyn novel,' 'Canadian novel,' '' Wagner continues. ``It's very odd that way.''

And the name scarcely refers to the nexus of their popularity. Aileen Boyle, associate publisher at Simon & Schuster, says, ``There have been Hollywood books that sell better in New York than in L.A. It's a broad genre, and New Yorkers definitely like it. Los Angeles doesn't navel-gaze necessarily, and they're not the only ones interested: Wherever you have a multiplex, you have people interested in Hollywood books.''

It's also curious that although films and TV shows about the entertainment industry have trouble drawing sizable audiences (think Showtime's ``Fat Actress'' or HBO's ``Entourage'' as recent examples), there's a hunger for novels about the glamour, decadence and heartbreak therein.

Julian Fellowes, an Oscar-winning screenwriter (``Gosford Park'') whose first book, ``Snobs'' (St. Martin's Press; $23.95), offers the British equivalent of the Hollywood novel (it concerns an actor who rubs elbows with the English aristocracy and finds them piteous if tedious) observes, ``Schadenfreude is pretty much in all the novels. Part of the reader wants to hear about the glitter, and part of them wants to hear about their suicide in a sleazy hotel. It's payback for being impertinent enough to live an ideal life.''

The Hollywood novel comes in several forms, with its earliest incarnation coming in the form of the literary novel, in which authors like Nathanael West (1939's ``The Day of the Locust'') and F. Scott Fitzgerald (1941's ``The Last Tycoon'') offer eviscerating portraits of Tinseltown as the place the American Dream goes to die.

--Which makes it ironic that the most common and successful version of the Hollywood novel is the lurid, titillating power-glamour-and-sex story, as exemplified by anything by Danielle Steele or Jackie Collins.

--There's the roman a clef, in which the characters are thinly disguised variations on real celebrities (consider the works of Carrie Fisher, such as ``Postcards From the Edge,'' or her most recent, ``The Best Awful'').

--And now there's the chick-lit-goes-to-Hollywood genre. Karen McCullah Lutz, who co-wrote the screenplays for ``Legally Blonde'' and ``10 Things I Hate About You,'' created a hybrid with her first novel, ``The Bachelorette Party'' (St. Martin's Press; $21.95), about a schoolteacher dumped by her soap-star boyfriend, who at one point gets cozy with a male model who is one of her students. It's also unique in that it features a Hollywood agent as a sympathetic character.

``I love Los Angeles, but it's the worst place in the world for a single girl, particularly one that's not an actress or model,'' says Lutz. ``A lot of America is fascinated with L.A. - that's why People magazine sells so many copies. It's thought that if you live here, you can date a soap star or maybe have sex with a model. There's a little bit of that.''

Ironically, success isn't always all that glamorous, Lutz admits.

``I worked on this book for 10, 11 months. I worked mainly at night and on weekends. It's very odd to be writing about partying and bad behavior while sitting alone at home.''

--There's also the satire of the venal cynicism that pervades the industry, a recent example of which is Peter Lefcourt's ``The Manhattan Beach Project'' (Simon & Schuster; $24). In it, a struggling producer gets work on a reality-TV series about a ruthless Uzbek warlord and his family. As the show becomes a hit, its own reality becomes more surreal, while the actual reality of the production spirals out of control as both al-Qaida and the CIA get involved.

``It seems to me that television networks today are on a war footing,'' says Lefcourt, whose career has been divided between producing TV series (the Hollywood satire ``Beggars and Choosers,'' ``Due South'') and writing novels (the Hollywood satire ``The Deal,'' which first introduces the character in his latest book).

``The pervasive quality in the business these days is fear,'' he says. ``Everyone is afraid of failing. The system is so overloaded that there is no margin for error. There are no careers anymore, merely sequential opportunities. People are running faster in place, desperately trying to latch on to something. This overwhelming insecurity is the milieu I live and write in.''

But it is the very dysfunction of the system - and how it inspires abysmal behavior among those who succeed with it - that makes for the most trenchant storytelling, the authors believe.

``Flawed characters are the bread and butter of novelists,'' Lefcourt says. ``There is something fascinating about the incomplete person. (John) Milton (in 'Paradise Lost') found out that Satan was a lot more interesting than the Archangel.''

The heightened drama of behind-the-scenes bad behavior among the privileged is irresistible to both writers and readers.

``It is an interesting phenomenon to watch people go mad,'' Fellowes observes with typical British understatement. ``Hollywood is, more than anything else, the universal dream ... everything is given to you. You're usually beautiful, and everyone wants to sleep with you anyway without that. And the work is, quite simply, less onerous than that of people earning a fraction of that amount.''

It's interesting to note that all of the authors interviewed have been successful in Hollywood - they're biting the hand that pampers them. Wagner, whose Hollywood novels aspire to a more literary quality than most books about the glitterati, believes verisimilitude comes from a deep understanding of the industry's crueler impulses.

``You can't write about demons without inhabiting that demon,'' he says. ``Otherwise, you're telling a lie. The full spectrum of human behavior is in us - we're capable of anything. If you understand that dark part within us, you can write characters that the reader is both uncomfortable with and yet they sympathize with. That's a nice goal to have - to make the audience sympathetic with the darker side of themselves.''

David Kronke,[phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

4 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Writing the book on Hollywood

New batch of authors chronicles life in Tinseltown

Jon Gerung/Staff Artist

(2) BRUCE WAGNER

(3) CARRIE FISHER

(4) JULIAN FELLOWES

Box:

Paging Tinseltown

- D.K.