{"product_id":"the-electric-hotel-by-dominic-smith","title":"The Electric Hotel by Dominic Smith","description":"\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eDominic Smith's \u003cem\u003eThe Electric Hotel \u003c\/em\u003ewinds through the nascent days of cinema in Paris and Fort Lee, New Jersey--America's first movie town--and on the battlefields of Belgium during World War I. A sweeping work of historical fiction, it shimmers between past and present as it tells the story of the rise and fall of a prodigious film studio and one man's doomed obsession with all that passes in front of the viewfinder.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003eFor nearly half a century, Claude Ballard has been living at the Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel. A French pioneer of silent films, who started out as a concession agent for the Lumiere brothers, the inventors of cinema, Claude now spends his days foraging mushrooms in the hills of Los Angeles and taking photographs of runaways and the striplings along Sunset Boulevard. But when a film-history student comes to interview Claude about \u003cem\u003eThe Electric Hotel\u003c\/em\u003e--the lost masterpiece that bankrupted him and ended the career of his muse, Sabine Montrose--the past comes surging back. In his run-down hotel suite, the ravages of the past are waiting to be excavated: celluloid fragments and reels in desperate need of restoration, and Claude's memories of the woman who inspired and beguiled him.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cspan data-sheets-root=\"1\"\u003eHistorical Fiction - Literary Fiction - France - War\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Smith, Dominic","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42328470356054,"sku":"","price":8.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0600\/2350\/4982\/files\/20250525_151431.jpg?v=1748161306","url":"https:\/\/www.secondhandpages.com.au\/products\/the-electric-hotel-by-dominic-smith","provider":"Secondhand Pages ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}