The Actor

A once-dazzling celebrity with worshipful fans, actor Marc Allender is nearly washed up.  He’s lost his identity and sense of reality.   The willpower to avoid debauchery and drugs is absent.  As Marc’s life and drug use rapidly spins out of control, a star-struck fan becomes his lifeline.  Not only does her adoration inflate his sagging ego, her genuine personality grounds him.  He clings to her like a drowning man, but how much suffering can this loving woman endure in her effort to save Marc?

Film stars’ excesses are frequently reported in tabloids to those fascinated by glamorous lifestyles.  “The Actor” bares a few of the most negative aspects of fame and fortune.  The hero, Marc, is frequently used by people, but he’s not an innocent, as seen at the beginning of the story.  To have witnessed the man before the celebrity status would have been revealing, yet he’s introduced as a man reinvented so many times he no longer knows who the ‘real’ person is.  Parties, alcohol, drugs, and women carry him through the chaos.   He’s a walking disaster, one overdose away from death, and this aspect feels especially relevant.  Then, his heroine enters the picture.  At first, she had a believable reason for being with him; yet, her continued interest and devotion are bewildering to the reader.  Their romance is unconvincing.  The hero and heroine would have benefited from a backstory to support the attachments and feelings that conveniently emerge.  “The Actor” includes promising secondary characters, whose further development may have added another layer to the plot.  Overall, strengths are present within the story, especially with Marc, the actor about to crash and burn in his artificial world.

Anna Fitzgerald