Pomegranate Seed

By Amanda Cockrell and Tony Neuron

Elizabeth Sydney, Oscar-winning grande dame of Hollywood, known to friends as Liza Jane, is 80. She “isn’t ready to go. She doubts she ever will be, but she feels the tug as if someone is trying to hand her a rail ticket and the crowd is pushing her down the platform. So she’s making her will again, because this time she knows what she wants to say.”

An assortment of family and friends assemble for the funeral, leading to the spontaneous combustion that only the forced gathering of movie actors, directors, old and new flames, a rock star, and post-divorce combatants can produce.

Libby Novak, Liza Jane’s niece, returns to the turbulent and ephemeral world that encompassed her youth. Alex Murray, a Pittsburgh cop, has his life upended when he is named one of Liza Jane’s heirs. Producer Ben Zenovich and screenwriter Mike Rosen arrive, dragging a reluctant Frank Hill (box office gold, in the middle of a nasty divorce, and one of Liza Jane’s former lovers) behind them. Liza Jane herself is revealed through reminiscences and a series of flashbacks from the days of silent film through the blacklisting of the McCarthy era, and beyond.

“Amanda Cockrell has written a zinger of a novel with serious import—here’s the real human tragedy of the Hollywood blacklist with verve and style. Cockrell’s unerring sense of time and place allows her to present California without cliché, then and now, as she shifts between past and present time. A mesmerizing read.”
— Lee Smith

“Take an authentic and evocative summoning up of more than half a century of Hollywood history, from the silents to the hard edges of here and now; add on a lively and diverse cast of characters, credible people as surprising and memorable as the pilgrims in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales; mix well with a suspenseful, page-turning story; then season with humor and style, and you have Pomegranate Seed. Amanda Cockrell is a master magician and this novel is a pleasure to read from first to last.”
— George Garrett

• Language: English
• Publisher: Amanda Cockrell
• Release date: Aug 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9781625360755

Amanda Cockrell

Amanda Cockrell has published critical essays, poems, articles, and books for children and adults. She is the founding director of Hollins University's graduate program in children's literature and managing editor of the university's literary journal. This is her debut YA novel. She resides in Roanoke, Virginia.