"Scoundrels & Spitballers is to be read more as a book about writers and Hollywood, rather than one about screenwriters in Hollywood. The author stresses the vibrancy and free-for-all giddiness of a period when the film industry was young, and its workers even younger. And, perhaps, along the way these tales might define the important and not-always-negative role Hollywood played in the literary life of the 1930s. Hollywood broke a few writers' souls, but it also helped many and definitely inspired a few. Writers profiled in Scoundrels & Spitballers include: Nathaniel West, John Sanford, Marguerite Roberts, Robert Tasker, John Bright, Rowland Brown, Sam Brown, Niven Busch, James M. Cain, A.I. Bezzerides, Horace McCoy, and W.R. Burnett." --