A movie star on a meteoric rise, young James Dean was already being
hailed as one of America's finest actors when he died in a high-speed
car accident in 1955. In one terrible instant a luminous future glowing
with extraordinary promise was snuffed out forever. But what if it
wasn't?
With The Rebel, acclaimed award-winning author Jack
Dann pulls James Dean from the twisted wreckage and offers him a second
chance to make an indelible mark on his art, his culture, and his time
in an era of profound change and devastating social upheaval.
Surviving
the horrific crash that leaves him permanently scarred, both physically
and emotionally, the rebellious young star approaches his rebirth with
trepidation, charged with an inescapable new responsibility to do
"something wonderful and important." Cast back into a world of
Hollywood glitz and glamour, a haunted, brooding, and complex artist
climbs higher than even his most fervent admirers imagined he could,
ascending to a pinnacle of success and power no actor of his or any
generation has ever achieved. Yet for Jimmy Dean, the glory road will
be winding and broken, littered with the detritus of exploded dreams
and destroyed love, as it passes through the holiest cultural sites of
postwar twentieth-century America – the genius-and-drug-pumped world
of the Beats, the protected inner sanctum of Graceland, the darkest
shadows of Camelot. The lives and futures of Kerouac, Sinatra, Elvis
and the Colonel, and the Kennedys will all be touched by him – yet
perhaps none so deeply as the fragile sex goddess who will always be
his greatest burden and true soul mate, a dazzling and tragically lost
phenomenon named Marilyn – as he moves relentlessly toward an
astonishing destiny that will reconfigure the world.
Ingeniously blending historical fact with brilliant invention, The Rebel is a hip, fast, mesmerizing ride through the fifties and sixties – an
unforgettable road trip across a nation torn by bitter racial strife
and violently divided by war, with an American legend at the wheel.
