{"product_id":"my-face-for-the-world-to-see-isbn-9781590176672","title":"My Face for the World to See","description":"Alfred Hayes is one of the secret masters of the twentieth century novel, a journalist and scriptwriter and poet who possessed an immaculate ear and who wrote with razorsharp intelligence about passion and its payback.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eMy Face for the World to See\u003c\/i\u003e is set in Hollywood, where the tonic for anonymity is fame and you’re only as real as your image. At a party, the narrator, a screenwriter, rescues a young woman who staggers with drunken determination into the Pacific. He is living far from his wife in New York and long ago shed any illusions about the value of his work. He just wants to be left alone. And yet without really meaning to, he gets involved with the young woman, who has, it seems, no illusions about love, especially with married men. She’s a survivor, even if her beauty is a little battered from years of not quite making it in the pictures. She’s just like him, he thinks, and as their casual relationship takes on an increasingly troubled and destructive intensity, it seems that might just be true, only not in the way he supposes.“An exciting, engrossing work, written with beautiful economy and the sure skill of an artist who knows what he is doing.... Mr. Hayes has created characters that are the essence of human hopes and frailty.” —\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Hayes is a master of the withheld detail...This is an insider's manual for all those who would aspire to fame, the ghostly glamour of the movies, and believe they are entitled to\u003cbr\u003eit.\"  —Nicholas Lezard, \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Hayes’s plots are deceptively simple. In \u003ci\u003eMy Face for the World to See\u003c\/i\u003e, a married screenwriter, alienated from his own apparent success…saves a penniless aspiring actress from drowning at a beachfront party. Their brief, poignant affair, as unsentimental as it is inevitable, unfolds like a noirish romance.\" —Brian Patrick Eha, \u003ci\u003eCity Journa\u003c\/i\u003el\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The most vivid picture of Hollywood since Nathanael West’s \u003ci\u003eDay of the Locust\u003c\/i\u003e.” —Nelson Algren\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “All of Alfred Hayes’s writing has been marked by a fine grace and finish; and \u003ci\u003eMy Face for the World to See \u003c\/i\u003eis like his earlier books in its quiet control of words and effects. Grace, finish, control—or plain style—are all rare qualities in the generally verbose weather of contemporary prose; and when they appear they must be greeted with honest gratitude and praise.” —\u003ci\u003eChicago Daily Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Hayes writes luminously about people who can’t help themselves, who can’t resist the temptations that are set to destroy them.... Hayes has done for bruised men what Jean Rhys does for bruised women, and they both write heartbreakingly beautiful sentences.” —Paul Bailey, \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “A constant tug back to the LCD of raw humanity is one of the most striking features of Mr. Hayes’s superficially sophisticated writing.... This is an insidious, nasty, nagging book, with a bitter after-taste: but there is no doubt in the world that Mr. Hayes knows what he is about.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Irish Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “In it is captured the essence of Hollywood, the bitterness which lies beneath the pleasant aroma of success and fame.... In the compass of this novel, Hayes, who is one of the best novelists writing today [1958], has captured the ineffable sadness which marches in the van of success, has touched the corrupting qualities of Hollywood which have escaped most of those who have written about this fabled town.” —\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Deeply moving.” —\u003ci\u003eNew York Herald Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “A small jolting shot of bitter wisdom.” —\u003ci\u003eNewsweek\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eAlfred Hayes\u003c\/b\u003e (1911–1985) was born into a Jewish family in Whitechapel, London,  though his father, a barber, trained violinist, and sometime bookie,  moved the family to New York when Hayes was three. After attending City  College, Hayes worked as a reporter for the \u003ci\u003eNew York American\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eDaily Mirror\u003c\/i\u003e and began to publish poetry, including “Joe Hill,” about the legendary  labor organizer, which was later set to music by the composer Earl  Robinson and recorded by Joan Baez. During World War II Hayes was  assigned to a special services unit in Italy; after the war he stayed on  in Rome, where he contributed to the story development and scripts of  several classic Italian neorealist films, including Roberto Rossellini’s  \u003ci\u003ePaisà\u003c\/i\u003e (1946) and Vittorio De Sica’s \u003ci\u003eBicycle Thieves \u003c\/i\u003e(1948), and gathered material for two popular novels, \u003ci\u003eAll Thy Conquests\u003c\/i\u003e (1946) and \u003ci\u003eThe Girl on the Via Flaminia\u003c\/i\u003e (1949), the latter the basis for the 1953 film \u003ci\u003eAct of Love\u003c\/i\u003e, starring Kirk Douglas. In the late 1940s Hayes went to work in Hollywood, writing screenplays for \u003ci\u003eClash by Night\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eA Hatful of Rain\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Left Hand of God\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eJoy in the Morning\u003c\/i\u003e, and Fritz Lang’s \u003ci\u003eHuman Desire\u003c\/i\u003e,  as well as scripts for television. Hayes was the author of seven  novels, a collection of stories, and three volumes of poetry. In addition to \u003ci\u003eMy Face for the World to See\u003c\/i\u003e, NYRB Classics publishes\u003ci\u003e In Love.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eDavid Thomson\u003c\/b\u003e is film critic at \u003ci\u003eThe New Republic\u003c\/i\u003e and has been a frequent contributor to \u003ci\u003eSight \u0026amp; Sound, Film Comment\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Independent\u003c\/i\u003e. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eA Biographical Dictionary of Film\u003c\/i\u003e and, most recently, \u003ci\u003eThe Big Screen: The Story of the Movies\u003c\/i\u003e. He has also written several novels, including \u003ci\u003eSuspects\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eSilver Light\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305529692389,"sku":"NP9781590176672","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781590176672.jpg?v=1767733255","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/my-face-for-the-world-to-see-isbn-9781590176672","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}