One day in the California winter of that year Warren Kummer crouched on the cracked linoleum in the kitchen of his rented bungalow turned the dial on the white enamel stove to broil and stuck his head inside the oven. So begins Benjamin Manaster s darkly comic tale of a down on his luck director rescued from oblivion in Hollywood. A phone call from an old producer friend in London sends him on a voyage au bout de la nuit a quest that will test his endurance and threaten his very survival. Hired to develop and direct a western Warren s primary task is to convince a female film star to play the title role. In hot pursuit of stars and would-be stars he flies to London Paris and Montreal Zurich Denver and Mazatlan. Warren s adventures based on real experiences in the skin game that is Hollywood lead him into the orbit of one ominous white giantess the crazy Skyla Conte a major star in Hollywood firmament. His bizarre sexual involvement with this legendary goddess is the centrepiece of a comic tour de force an absurdly funny trip through the maddening world of movie-making.