CROWNED HEADS
by THOMAS TRYON
399 pages. Knopf. $8.95.
Weaving fiction around such a monstrously self-mythologizing place as Hollywood is like gilding a plastic lily. That is just what Thomas Tryon unabashedly attempts in Crowned Heads. He is not writing for the ages but for the balcony.
Given the success of his three previous novels (The Other, Harvest Home, Lady), Tryon is likely to draw quite a house. Crowned Heads reels off four novellas about imaginary film stars: Fedora, a mysteriously ageless movie queen; Lorna Doone, a onetime "All-American cookie" who has begun to crumble; Bobby Ransome, a former child star with...
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