In 1988, John Gregory Dunne and his wife, writer Joan Didion, began work on a screenplay about the life and career of ambitious, shallow, self-destructive network anchorwoman Jessica Savitch. In 1996, the movie made from their screenplay—titled Up Close And Personal and now the story of a young woman drawing strength and inspiration from a much older and more experienced man—was released to become a box-office hit. Monster details those eight years and the process of turning a story into a movie in Hollywood, a place not known for its love of good writing. The first of many revelations in Monster is the fact that Hollywood, true to rumor, actively hates writers. No work can be done until their job is finished, they often demand too much creative control, and worst of all, they're the only major movie talent pool that can go on strike. Dunne introduces this contempt to us by exploring the Hollywood system of bringing in as many writers as possible, one after the other; giving them conflicting instructions until they have many different scripts; and cutting and pasting to get the desired result. If you think this sounds like an inefficient and sneaky approach to storytelling, Dunne would agree. However, it's not the reason his bio of Savitch—a dark, amoral story of ruthless drive and opportunistic manipulation—became such an insipid feel-good film. Because Dunne and Didion were on the Up Close And Personal project for the duration, some of the blame for the story's transformation must fall to them. Dunne readily admits his guilt, establishing early on that he only writes movies to earn a living: During the time he worked on this screenplay, he had a hand in seven other scripts, five books, and dozens of outside projects for newspapers and magazines. Dunne and Didion allowed themselves to be convinced that the movie wasn't about the evils of Jessica Savitch, but in the words of their producer, "the story of two movie stars." Because he tacitly implies that he's as guilty as the rest, Monster doesn't come off as a hand-wringing cry for purity in art. This isn't a tell-all backstabbing memoir along the lines of You'll Never Eat Lunch In This Town Again: Dunne still likes working on movies. He enjoys many movie people. His excitement for associating with Robert Redford, even on a project he hates, is boundless. But Monster is still a brutal book, full of examples of greed, infighting, petty cruelty, and giant egos: When Dunne responds to Disney head Michael Eisner's story of his multiple bypass by saying that he had undergone the same operation, Eisner responds without missing a beat, "Of course, mine was more serious." Dunne's honesty, his ability to show both sides of the coin, is illustrated by the fact that he also reports his wife's response: "It was not!" Monster's honesty is compelling. It's a must-read for anyone who deeply loves or hates the movies, and it's an even greater necessity for anyone who wants to write a screenplay. Beyond all this, it offers a damn good story about, of all things, storytelling. John Gregory Dunne has added something entirely new to the history of Hollywood: a truly important book.