Variety chief correspondent Daniel D’Addario is taking readers inside the A-list and behind the scenes of one of the most contentious awards races ever.
In his new novel “The Talent,” to be released Feb. 25, 2025, D’Addario follows a single awards season from kickoff to the big night, as five women vie for the best actress trophy. The competitors include Adria, a dignified and highly regarded grande dame; Bitty, a raw-nerve comedy actress making her dramatic breakthrough, and trying to push through her anxieties with an increasing alcohol dependency; Contessa, a former child star who’s ready to shed both her innocent reputation and her momager; Davina, a legend of the London stage who’s growing ever more intrigued by superficial, alluring Los Angeles; and Jenny, nursing the wounds of a decades-long losing streak — and looking for a chance to finally defeat her archrival, Adria. Over the course of the novel, these women battle, betray and befriend one another as they wait to see whose name is inside the final envelope.
Rumaan Alam, author of “Leave the World Behind,” has praised “The Talent,” calling it “a book about performance as an art, and the social performance of the self, a biting but somehow affectionate novel about contemporary life.” Andrew Lipstein, author of “Last Resort” and “The Vegan,” writes, “With audacity and empathy, acuity and wit, D’Addario interrogates ambition, celebrity, and legacy to devastating effect.”
At Variety, D’Addario has profiled a number of decorated actors, writing cover stories on Jennifer Coolidge, Ana de Armas, Zac Efron, Andrew Scott, Matt Smith and Kate Winslet, among others. He’s also one of the moderators of Variety’s Actors on Actors series. He has won awards from the Los Angeles Press Club for profile writing and for political commentary and lives with his husband and two daughters in Brooklyn.
“The work I’ve done at Variety has provided invaluable context for this novel,” D’Addario says. “While the book touches on universal themes of parenthood, envy, friendship, and the attempt (sometimes futile) to shed personal baggage, the setting, and the particular divine absurdity, of an awards campaign is something I hope readers feel they’re seeing up close, from an insider’s perspective.”
“The Talent” will be published by Scout Press, an imprint of Simon and Schuster, and is available for pre-order now.
Source Agencies
