It's Hollywood in the late 1930s, 40s. Mercury Pictures is studio that makes B-minus movies, run by Artie Feldman, a man of many toupees and little taste. But he has a big heart, and as an immigrant himself, he hires refugees from the European horror and puts them in whatever job he can squeeze them into, suitable or not.

Maria Lagana is one of those who is in the right job. She and her mother fled Italy a decade earlier after her father, an anti-Mussolini lawyer was arrested. She's Artie's right hand and the crux of her job is to get tawdry scripts by the Production Code Administration and her goal is to be a producer. Besides pushing the boundaries of good taste, some of these scripts also push scenarios that the US government is not currently embracing. That will change after December 7, 1941.

Anthony Marra is a beautiful writer, and it's a treat to see him put his talents in service of this story, another one of those World War Two tales that seem so fresh after eighty years. Maria's lover is a Chinese American classical actor now offered lots of roles as a dastardly Japanese. Pretty soon, she will be registered as an enemy alien and unable to visit her great aunts who run an Italian restaurant in another part of town, outside her seven mile travel limit. German refugees on Artie's payroll vanish to possibly become American spies. Filmmakers learn that real battle scenes never look right so it's better to stage them.

Engaging and readable, this story of reinvention and resilience was worth waiting for. Anthony Marra reveals a new side of his talent and I hope we don't have to wait another six years for another new novel. You have to love a writer who can make a B movie studio a place of courage and discovery.

Marra’s first novel , [book:A Constellation of Vital Phenomena|18428067] focuses on the Chechen War with Russia and perhaps is more relevant at this point in time as it is reminiscent of the horrific treatment that the people of Ukraine are experiencing now. However, this novel is a story about a different war, which also captures the effect of war on the people who live or sometimes die through the circumstances of that war. It’s also from the unique perspective of Hollywood, which I don’t remember encountering in all of the WWII novels I’ve read.

In the years just before WWII, Maria Lagana and her mother make it to the US from Rome after her father is arrested for anti fascist activities. In Hollywood, Maria stakes her claim to a job as assistant producer at a movie studio. Through Maria, we meet a cast of characters, several of whom are immigrants like her. Their lives as well as back stories serve to create plot lines which at times seem a bit all over the place. But, there is a cohesiveness here of emotional connection between the characters, that comes together. It’s with the backdrop of Hollywood, the “Enemy Alien” status of Maria, Eddie Lu, the Chinese actor she loves, Anna Weber, a German miniaturist, there are heartbreaking ramifications. While this is extremely sad for the most part, I wasn’t expecting it to be as funny as it was at times with some larger than life characters.

So much relevance. This is a story of how war impacts the lives of people caught in the time and place. I can’t say that I loved it as much as [book:A Constellation of Vital Phenomena|18428067] or Marra’s story collection, [book:The Tsar of Love and Techno|23995336]. However, this is certainly worth reading. It would make a terrific movie.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Hogarth/Random House through NetGalley

Thanks to Random House/Hogarth and Netgalley for providing this eARC. Anthony Marra continues to write beautiful novels. I’m in awe of his writing, his sentences are like music to me. This story is also compelling although I didn’t think it was quite as engrossing as A Constellation of Vital Phenomena his prior novel. I enjoyed the historical aspects and learning especially about the Italian internal confinements which I hadn’t known of before. I also liked how we wove together a disparate set of characters who came together in the quest for advancement and accomplishment through movie making. I’d recommend this to any Marra fans and historical fiction fans.

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House/Hogarth for the ebook. As a child, Maria Lagana and her mother have to escape Rome as her lawyer father gets in trouble with Mussolini’s government. Years later, having ended up in Los Angeles, Maria works for the man running Mercury Pictures, a second tier movie studio barely scrapping by in the run up to the Second World War. This is an epic of a book. It touches on politics, emigres, the war in Europe and a million other stories that the author gives time to explore and play out. At times harrowing and at times filled with the fast dialogue of the screwball comedies being made at the time, this book is never less then fascinating.

Excellent from top to bottom. My expectations for this book were high -- and they were met. My only piece of critical feedback is that I think the skyscraper on the cover might imply a New York setting at first glance -- I wish it was a little more attention-grabbing. That's just a minor issue though; I definitely plan to buy a final copy when the book comes out.

Sprawling, cleverly wordy, and fun, the book treks from Italy to Hollywood during the U.S.'s leadup and then involvement in WWII. There's a lot going on, but Marra does a good job moving the story along. There's a lot of good insider baseball (not literally—there's no baseball) that keeps it fantastic but believable, including a hyperrealistic model of six blocks of 1940s Berlin built in the Utah desert to test incendiary devices.

I expected to love this book since it involved so many layers that interest me. It is about the film industry, the Red scare, Italians living here during WWII as well as a hefty dose of background of Fascist a Italy. With all this, it just didn’t work for me. Maybe too much? Too many characters? Writing style?

So, with it all, I was disappointed and I’m not sure how book groups could begin to divide it up and have meaningful discussions.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC.

“Mercury Pictures Presents” by Anthony Marra is a book about Hollywood, European immigrants, and WWII. I enjoy reading about Hollywood especially behind the scenes types of books. Mr. Marra’s overall writing style wasn’t to my taste, however I did like some of his witty descriptions (such as comparing a woman to both a painter and a sandwich). I liked some parts of this book because they repeated known Hollywood truths - the racism (Eddie) and bits about Bela Lugosi. I liked some of the backstories of characters, but at other times they seemed disconnected from the story, but at the same time provided more color and depth to the character, which was great, but I found at times distracting. I’m a bit conflicted about this book and have come of the conclusion that “it’s me, not the book.” I may try rereading this at another time, as overall it has “good bones” and I find the topic very interesting.

I got this from Netgalley, so I felt obligated to read it. But after my last experience reading a male author writing in a post-WWII era, I was braced for the worst. Luckily my fears were relaxed pretty much after the first page. This is a much, much better novel in pretty much every conceivable way. I loved the story, the flashbacks, the characters... it's a story I'm definitely going to revisit when it officially comes out. I couldn't have asked for a better book/writer to move on from a bad author experience.

Most likely to end up on my best-of 2022 list.

I’m going to go with: It’s not the book, it’s me. Mercury Pictures Presents has plenty of five star reviews, and I have raved about author Anthony Marra’s work before, but this time? I was kind of bored; unmoved by the writing and unsurprised by the plot and its details. I have zero interest in stories about Hollywood and moviemaking, and I feel like everything important that can be said about WWII in fiction was written by the people who lived through it, and although there was the potential for something interesting about Hollywood propaganda drumming up fascistic control over those “resident aliens” who had fled rising fascism in their birth countries, it didn’t much pay off for me. Marra draws some fine characters, gives them some snappy lines, puts them in singular circumstances, and none of it really touched me. I acknowledge this failure to connect is on me; another reader’s experience may be totally different.

It's been six years since publication of Anthony Marra's last book, and finally the wait is over. With Mercury Pictures Presents, he carries the themes and style he'd honed in his two earlier masterpieces, and has created another. I'd thought the WWII era had been so thoroughly milked that further reworking would be redundant, but Marra has breathed life into a story centered around the collection of emigres attracted to Los Angeles and their contribution to the movie industry. As with his earlier books, there is a large interlocking cast, but what he does so well is give life to even the participants occupying the smallest page count, like the bit players he is honoring. One of his strongest trademarks, the human connection, is a feature of all his plotlines. By playing the long game with his characters, he establishes threads that transcend time and distance against seemingly impossible odds, with satisfactory outcomes, not always expected or happy, but satisfactory nonetheless. I'm reluctant to provide any quotes since it would be hard to choose, but despite it being so early, this will be my favorite book of the year.

Mercury Pictures Presents by Anthony Marra is a great historical fiction that takes us into the lives of several associated with an American movie studio during the pivotal 1940s.

I really enjoyed how the author was able to take an overarching theme, The Movie Studio company, and weave several different, and unique, character stories into it. It created a solid rope that had several different strands entwined throughout.

The way the author was able to create and express the main character, Maria, and the character cast that are encompassing her was really fascinating, unique, and an engaging story that really gave a fresh view on a genre of historical fiction that has been already heavily covered thus far.

4/5 stars

Thank you NG and Random House Publishing Group for this wonderful arc and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon, Instagram, and B&N accounts upon publication on 7/19/22.