With George Clooney just getting engaged, and ongoing speculation that Tom Cruise is looking for wife No. 4, the timing is perfect for “The Actress,” due from Simon & Schuster on July 1.
I was able to get my hands on an advance copy of Amy Sohn’s roman à clef, and I can reveal that the protagonist Maddy is a Katie Holmes-like ingenue from Vermont who tumbles into a fairy-tale romance with movie star Steven Weller, discovering there’s no truth to the gay rumors that have dogged him for years.
One character warns Maddy, “Steven doesn’t respect women . . . he likes his women pretty, dumb and quiet. And he doesn’t like any for more than a year.”
But Maddy gets engaged, just as Lebanese lawyer Amal Alamuddin got engaged to Clooney, who had previously dated a string of little-known actresses, including Stacy Keibler, Elisabetta Canalis and Krista Allen.
Fellow Brooklyn author Emily Gould, who has also read the book, told me, “I told Amy I thought she was a witch. I don’t know if it’s Voodoo or Santeria. If there’s a shaman she’s working with, I’d love to have him for when my next book comes out.”
Maddy, like Katie Holmes, grew up crushing on her leading man, with his posters on her bedroom wall.
After they marry and sign a postnuptial agreement, Maddy’s friend tells her, “I would never do what you did . . . . Oh god. Don‘t pretend you don’t know. It’s all over the Internet. The marriage contract. For appearances. The one that pays you a salary to be his wife. You have to go out with him to public events and smile for photos, but you don’t have to f–k him.”
Novelist Curtis Sittenfeld tweeted, “Doesn’t it sound like Amy Sohn wrote a novel about Katie Holmes?”
Simon & Schuster spokesman Cary Goldstein told me, “We emphatically deny that these characters bear any resemblance to actual Hollywood stars. Steven Weller is in no way shape or form inspired by Tom Cruise.”
Sohn’s agent Richard Abate said, “Everyone has an opinion — “It’s Clooney! It’s Cruise! I don’t think it’s either, but readers will decide for themselves.”
The author’s last two novels, “Prospect Park West” and “Motherland,” skewered the Brooklyn mommy scene and offered up fictionalized versions of celebs like Sean Penn and Robert Downey Jr.