“In Pursuit of Beauty is part medical noir, part sociological confection, all giddy pleasure. The book just zips along. Its writer, Gary Baum, a journalist for The Hollywood Reporter, understands LA—and the neuroses of the people who live there—in a bone-deep way. This is one queasy and kinky delight.”—Lili Anolik, bestselling author of Didion & Babitz and Hollywood’s Eve

“What a debut! So complete and clear is Baum’s understanding of the journalistic mind, its strategies, paranoias, and empathies, In Pursuit of Beauty could just as accurately be called In Pursuit of the Story—and that’s one hell of a pursuit, for as Baum puts it (perfectly), ‘Journalism’s a rude business, even in its finest hours, when it’s slaying dragons.’”—Sam Wasson, bestselling author of The Big Goodbye and The Path to Paradise

“In Pursuit of Beauty is a razor-sharp, emotionally rich story about identity, belonging, and the price to be paid for reinvention. With surgical precision, Baum dissects our modern culture and serves up a darkly funny and provocative meditation on ambition, appearance, and what it means to remake yourself from the outside in. I loved it.”—Scott C. Johnson, author of The Con Queen of Hollywood and The Wolf and the Watchman

“More than a deliciously juicy read—which it absolutely is—In Pursuit of Beauty is a crash course in the techniques, thrills, deceptions, and cat-and-mouse games of investigative reporting from a master of the craft. At stake in this novel, as in journalism itself, is nothing less than the knowability of truth.”—Julian Sancton, New York Times bestselling author of Madhouse at the End of the Earth

“It’s about time someone wrote a literary study of hotness (and its discontents)! Baum wields the insights wrested from his years reporting in the Hollywood trenches with devastating accuracy in this revelatory romp.”—Jade Chang, bestselling author of The Wangs vs. the World and What a Time to Be Alive

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