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Rating: 
Summary: ... or the dark side of Hollywood...
Review: After his huge editorial problems following the writing of his powerful "No Pockets in the Shroud", McCoy comes back to the Hollywood circle and builds a solid story starring a twin brother of Robert "They shoot Horses..." Syverten, Ralph Carston, a more muscled character - as McCoy himself was - but as naive as him, who came from his Southern home to become an actor - as McCoy himself did. He shares a small bungalow with a young pretty girl, Mona Matthews. This time they try to get in movies attending not marathon contests, but luxurious cocktails. But his accent doesn't give Ralph the opportunity to break in movies. He meets a rich old woman who falls in love with him but doesn't do anything for him to succeed as an actor. Naive and stubborn at the same time, he keeps wandering in Hollywood as Mona leaves the city after showing too much in the studios and wasting all of her chances to succeed.McCoy's painting of Hollywood in the 30's is still valid. It's not as sober and successful as "They shoot Horses..." but it's still very realistic, contemporary and well-described, with a real dramatic intensity. It's a novel which reflects not only what McCoy saw in Hollywood (where he worked as a screenwriter from 1933 to the end of his life), but also his own disillusions: he came to Hollywood in 1931 to work as an actor and a screenwriter but failed as an actor, because of his accent. Begun with "They shoot Horses, don't they?", McCoy's Hollywood "dilogy" ends with this short book where the writer invests himself mainly in Johnny Hill, an attractive, realistic character able (like Mike Dolan did in "No Pockets in a Shroud") to anticipate World War II.
Rating:
Summary: Remarkably Contemporary
Review: There's no rule that states that each novel must be an original unto itself. Originality is a rare commodity, and rehashing an old theme can sometimes lead to a new insight. Not here. I SHOULD HAVE STAYED HOME may have caused a stir when it was originally published, but it has not aged well. What seemed ground-breaking now seems routine and trite. Certainly, the travails of young hopefuls caught in the web of moral uncertainty that is Hollywood is nothing new. But while HOME may have been the among the first of many, it is too simple-minded to stand the test of time. At most, it is precocious in its innocence. The characters, who are idealistic to a fault, are annoying at best, and never elicit any sympathy for their troubles. If anything, any character who comes across as this stupid makes the reader yearn for more problems, so that the characters will really know what it's like to suffer. The whinings of a young man who can't be a star does not make for entertaining reading.
Rating: 
Summary: chasing a dream
Review: This isn't as good as Nat West's Hollywood tale entitled Day of the Locust, but then nothing is. Nat West was in a different league as a writer, much higher on the scale, etc., but that shouldn't keep you from enjoying McCoy's take on LA LA.
I'm a McCoy fan from way back, and what's sad is there you are wanting him to be as good as West or Hemingway or Hammet, et al, as a writer, and there is just no way. Don't get me wrong, McCoy does the best that he can with the gifts that he had...and one simply has to settle for it. What may have hurt him as a writer early on is the fact he wrote for the pulps...but then again so did Raymond Chandler and he didn't end up anything less than a first rate type of novelist--even though he worked in the private ... genre. Bottom line: Enjoy McCoy for what he has to offer--and what he's got to offer isn't all that bad either. An easy read and a cautionary tale: It's okay to have dreams, but don't throw your life away chasing after something that isn't likely to happen. And yet, we can relate: who hasn't got a dream or two they would like to see happen? It's part of being human. Horace McCoy never made it as an actor in real life, the reason he came out to Hollywood in the first place, but he did end up working on over one hundred B-flicks as a screenwriter. With that many credits to his name one imagines the man was able to make a decent living, that's a lot better than the thousands of other lost dreamers roaming the streets of The Glitter Factory. Four stars is a fair appraisal. We remain a McCoy fan.
Rating: 
Summary: hooray for Hollywood??
Review: With 'I Should Have Stayed Home' Horace McCoy repeats his successful formula of writing a brief novel about 1930s down-and-outs, in their own language. This time McCoy tackles Hollywood and the hopeless dreamers wishing to escape reality (ie, poverty) and become stars. Yes, this sort of stuff has been written about before. But unexpectedly, the main character here is a young man being abused for his looks and innocence. Although entirely readable and enjoyable, 'I Should Have Stayed Home' doesn't really break new ground. Its pathos doesn't come close to McCoy's better works (eg, 'They Shoot Horses...'). Folks new to the works of McCoy might be disappointed. Bottom line: nice time capsule of the "other side" of 1930s Hollywood. I just wish McCoy would have "twisted the knife" a little harder at the film establishment.
Rating:
Summary: hooray for Hollywood??
Review: With 'I Should Have Stayed Home' Horace McCoy repeats his successful formula of writing a brief novel about 1930s down-and-outs, in their own language. This time McCoy tackles Hollywood and the hopeless dreamers wishing to escape reality (ie, poverty) and become stars. Yes, this sort of stuff has been written about before. But unexpectedly, the main character here is a young man being abused for his looks and innocence. Although entirely readable and enjoyable, 'I Should Have Stayed Home' doesn't really break new ground. Its pathos doesn't come close to McCoy's better works (eg, 'They Shoot Horses...'). Folks new to the works of McCoy might be disappointed. Bottom line: nice time capsule of the "other side" of 1930s Hollywood. I just wish McCoy would have "twisted the knife" a little harder at the film establishment.
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