Tarantino turns his movie into a pulpy page-turner

Quentin Tarantino's first novel is, to borrow a phrase from his oeuvre, a tasty beverage. It is his novelisation of his 2019 film, Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood (the book's title omits the ellipsis).

Tarantino is not out to impress people with the intricacy of his sentences or the nuance of his psychological insights. He is here to tell a story, in take-it-or-leave-it Elmore Leonard fashion, and to make room along the way to talk about some of the things he cares about - old movies, male camaraderie, revenge and redemption, music and style.

He gets it. Pop culture is what the United States has instead of mythology. He was bitten early by this notion and he has stayed bitten.

The novel is loose-jointed. It is a mass-market paperback that reeks of mass-market paperbacks.

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood runs along the same tracks as the film. Some dialogue is similar, just about word for word. But the novel departs from the movie in ways small and large.

The movie's Grand Guignol ending, for example, which culminates with the ageing actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) torching a member of the Manson family with a flamethrower, is dispensed with, early in the novel, in a few sentences.

New Manson family scenes are tucked in. Tarantino goes so deep into Manson's once-promising music career, you may feel you are reading a back issue of Rolling Stone or Mojo magazine.

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is, at its heart, Cliff Booth's novel. Booth (Brad Pitt in the film) is Dalton's gofer and stunt double. His backstory gets filled in.

In World War II, one learns, he killed more Japanese than any other American soldier, and earned the Medal of Valour twice. He is filled with macho advice, which he casually dispenses.

Yet, Booth has a sensitive side. He is obsessed with movies. A lot of his opinions resemble Tarantino's.

There is good writing here about acting, foreign films, B movies and television action directors.

Booth is a fan of actor Alan Ladd, for example, because"when Ladd got mad in a movie, he didn't act mad. He just got sore, like a real fella. As far as Cliff was concerned, Alan Ladd was the only guy in movies who knew how to comb his hair, wear a hat or smoke a cigarette".

Readers will also discover how Dalton and Booth became friends. Booth saved him from an on-set fire, telling him: "Rick, you're standing in a puddle of water. Just fall down."

We learn how Booth got his pit bull, a star of the movie. He was given the dog, a champion fighter, to pay off a debt. Booth tags along on some of the fights.

In the movie, Booth refuses to let the dog eat until he takes the first bite of his own dinner - macaroni and cheese from a box. About that dish, Tarantino writes: "The directions say to add milk and butter, but Cliff thinks if you can afford to add milk and butter, you can afford to eat something else."

In Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Tarantino makes telling a page-turning story seem easy, which is the hardest trick of all.

NYTIMES