With the possible exception of stuffy Englishmen and the Catholic Church, there's no easier or more frequent target for satire than the film industry. A handful of masterpieces about Hollywood have been made (Day Of The Locust, Sunset Boulevard), but most—like last year's abysmal An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn—reveal as much about the narcissism and incompetence of their creators as they do about the absurdity of the film industry. Luckily, The Martini Shot, the first novel by 27-year-old Peter Craig (the son of Smokey And The Bandit star Sally Field), distinguishes itself by treating its characters as three-dimensional human beings rather than as slapstick caricatures. The Martini Shot tells the story of Charlie West, a washed-up, alcoholic action star with a dwindling career, a network of parasitic flunkies, and a family he treats with benign neglect. His life changes, however, when Matt Ravendahl, his illegitimate 18-year-old son, journeys to Hollywood to meet him, ultimately serving as the catalyst for his spiritual renewal. In a number of ways, The Martini Shot is a fairly typical first novel, full of awkward dialogue and writerly conceits. Craig's characterizations are similarly sketchy: Matt, for example, alternates between small-town naivete and hard-headed determination with seeming randomness. Likewise, the author has a disturbing tendency to fall back on sitcom-style one-liners when things get desperate. But Craig does display an undeniable gift for storytelling, as well as a promising ability to capture the messy dynamics of dysfunctional families.