The Silver Age is a new novel by obscure author and bon vivant Nicholson Gunn. Inspired by F. Scott Fitzgerald's great short story "Winter Dreams" (his warm-up for The Great Gatsby), it is 2013's other, somewhat lower budget, Fitzgerald remake.
Unfolding in a vibrant but prosaic Canadian city in the early years of the 2000's, the novel tells the story of Stephan Stern, a gifted young photographer who catches the eye of Jenny Wynne, a local journalist who writes a popular lifestyle column - a frothy confection of cultural analysis, gossip, and material cribbed from Sex and the City.
They begin a romance, but while Stephan falls head over heels, fantasizing marriage and a new life as a New York media power couple, Jenny treats the relationship as a casual fling. Life is long and youth's possibilities endless, she tells him.
But already their world is shifting: Stephan's beloved silver-nitrate film process is giving way to cheap, effortless digital photography, and the print media are struggling to survive in an increasingly savage marketplace. As the story progresses, personal and societal crises gather like dark clouds at the edge of a sunny vacation photo.
Set against a backdrop of societal change and upheaval - the destructive excesses of the Noughties, the revolutionary rise of digital media - The Silver Age is a romantic tale of ambition, hope, the passage of time and the drug of desire.
About the Author: Nicholson Gunn is an author, bon vivant, humanitarian, artisanal bourbon connoisseur and frisbee golf enthusiast who divides his time between New York City, Paris, Maui and suburban southwestern Ontario, Canada.
A former culture journalist, food writer and book critic, he has been nominated for various awards but remains an obscure figure.
His favorite books are The Age of Innocence, A Sentimental Education and Green Eggs and Ham (he believes the latter to be misunderstood by the critical establishment). He is a proponent of Hemingway's late-career catchphrase, "How do you like it now, gentlemen?"
A dedicated black-and-white film photographer, his efforts in this area have been described as amateurish at best.
Additional off-duty pursuits include cycling, woodworking and rampant womanizing.
Here is his favourite sentence: "Sometimes your words come back to me like a distant echo, like the sound of a bell carried by the wind; and when I read about love in a book, I feel that you are there beside me."
He finds the concept of a "human trout" hilarious.
