Beautiful Ruins

Published in 2012, Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter is a historical fiction romance novel that satirizes the ugliness of the film industry. Set in Italy, Hollywood, the United Kingdom, Seattle, and Idaho across several decades, the novel ties the lives and dreams of several characters together as they mingle before, during, and after the filming of the Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s 1963 blockbuster Cleopatra.

At its core, the novel is the story of a would-be actress who is all but destroyed by an ambitious Hollywood publicist vying for power, the Italian hotelier who becomes infatuated with her, her floundering rock star son, an alcoholic World War II veteran who spends years trying and failing to write his war novel, a chief development assistant longing to produce high-brow films, and an aspiring screenwriter looking for a chance to redeem himself. Beautiful Ruins is Walter’s sixth novel and a New York Times best seller. This guide references the 2013 Harper-Perennial edition of the novel.

Plot Summary

The story begins in April 1962, as Cleopatra supporting actress Debra Moore (going by the alias Dee Moray) arrives in a hotel in Porto Vergogna, Italy. Pasquale Tursi, the hotel’s owner, becomes smitten with her and hopes that she will attract tourists to the seaside village.