Kate Donnelly, an aspiring writer, has made her way to Los Angeles to pick up the fallen standard of her literary hero, F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose last great obsession had been with Hollywood and its peculiar industry. Prepared to immerse herself in all that is LA, Kate heads straight to Westwood Mortuary, the city's most celebrity-packed cemetery (Marilyn Monroe is there), to crash the celebrity-packed funeral of the renowned and despised Hollywood producer Larry Drayco. Kate soon finds herself masquerading among strangers who can't distinguish between Hemingway and Fitzgerald and mixing with ex-duchesses, major players, private detectives, aging enfants terribles, dealmakers, and philosopher-gurus as she makes her way in this foreign land.