Season of the Gods: A Novel

A woman in wartime Hollywood and her dream of the perfect motion picture. Renie Lee has climbed the ladder in a man's world to be head of the Story Department at Warner Bros. Studios. Renie is an idealist who believes that "the perfect film" can be created. When she pulls an unproduced stage play set in Morocco out of the slush pile, she has a feeling this one is special, maybe not perfect but special enough to secure her place as an equal to the studio's most powerful men. No one agrees with her until two brash young studio writers, Julius and Philip Epstein, decide to back Renie's gamble and bring the Morocco story to the screen. Their screenplay's name: Casablanca. Renie uses her charms on executive producer Hal Wallis until he finally agrees to her plan, but the problems seem insurmountable from the start, and Renie's gamble threatens to become a career killer for not only Renie but also her confederates, the Epsteins. Set against the backdrop of Pearl Harbor and the first months of World War II, Season of the Gods careens across the Warner Bros. lot, from the Writers Building to the dressing rooms and soundstages, to tell the spellbinding and unlikely story of Hollywood's greatest masterpiece through the eyes of all who made it happen.