Season of the Gods

A MUST-READ FOR FANS OF HISTORICAL NOVELS WITH A FEMINIST BENT, GOLDEN AGE HOLLYWOOD, AND THE FILM CASABLANCA!

Regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, Casablanca celebrated its 80th anniversary in 2022, sparking hordes of nostalgic think-pieces in media outlets from The Guardian to NPR – not one of which mentioned the woman without whom this “film whose ‘classic’ status is practically axiomatic” wouldn’t have made it out of the slush pile.

On October 3, 2023, that’s about to change.

The debut novel from internationally bestselling author and Hollywood historian Robert Matzen, Season of the Gods centers on Irene “Reenie” Lee – a scout for Warner Bros. Studios who, in 1941, reads an unproduced play titled "Everybody Comes to Rick’s" that she has a hunch could be something special… thus beginning one of the wildest stories of moviemaking magic Hollywood has ever seen.

A protagonist readers will root for from the word go, Reenie is smart as a whip, strong-willed and ambitious. But ambition has its limits for a young woman who must battle to be taken seriously in a man’s world. Not to mention her “junkyard” of a love life. 

She teams up with a young screenwriting duo, identical twins Julius and Philip Epstein, who decide to back Reenie's gamble and bring “the Morocco story” to the screen. The stakes grow ever higher as a dazzling cast of supporting characters comes into play, including heavyweight producer Hal B. Wallis, legendary director Michael Curtiz, dashing character actor Claude Rains and, of course, the quintessential leading man himself: Humphrey Bogart. 

Set against the backdrop of Pearl Harbor and the first months of World War II, the story culminates in an “a-ha!” moment which is at once surprising, familiar and deeply satisfying.

Known for his exhaustively researched and eminently readable biographies of Old Hollywood icons Errol Flynn, Carol Lombard, Jimmy Stewart, and Audrey Hepburn, Matzen lays the foundation of Season of the Gods in the facts while reveling in the freedom and flourish of fiction. Of his inspiration to write it, he says:

"Imagine being inside Warner Bros. at this magical time and having to fight the good fight to get ‘Casablanca’ made. Reenie Lee had been lost to history, and writing this story as a novel gave me the freedom to put Reenie in the spotlight she deserves. Not to mention this is the origin story of Aaron and Irene Diamond, two of the most famous names of the twentieth century in New York City.”