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A Novel
by Rasheed Newson
A cinematic, razor-sharp novel following a backlot fixer's daring investigation into the suspicious death of a closeted Black actor within the glamorous world of Hollywood, from the bestselling author of My Government Means to Kill Me.
Xavier C. Barlow, one of Hollywood's young Black stars taking the industry by storm in the late 1950s, is Skyline Studios's ambitious attempt to rival Sidney Poitier's burgeoning success. His arrival into the industry is calculated, his charm is magnetic, and his seductive screen presence appeals to both audiences and celebrities across generations.
But years later, after Xavier dies at the height of his fame, Aaron Touissant―Skyline's designated backlot fixer who helps the studio's stars stay as deep in the closet as humanly possible―is finally ready to expose the powerful culprits responsible for his untimely death.
Written as part-confessional, part-cris de coeur from Aaron's panoramic lens, There's Only One Sin in Hollywood is a searing portrait of the movie industry as a manicured minefield and a compelling journey into the queer history of Los Angeles.
"Though more saga than mystery, this ambitious novel takes big swings and mostly succeeds." —Kirkus Reviews
"[A]n engrossing story of sex, race, power, and ambition...this is a tale of how far the powerful will go to protect themselves and whose stories end up on the cutting-room floor." —Booklist
"Deliciously witty and packing enough erotic heat to make sensitive souls clutch their pearls, Rasheed Newson's superb second novel brings us Xavier, a rising superstar determined to liberate queer Hollywood from a culture that demands silence and acquiescence. In studio boardrooms and backlots twinkling with VIPs named Poitier and Belafonte, unknowns try to become legends and heroes struggle to be heroic. Newson writes in technicolor―wow, are these pages alive!―and knows where the bodies are buried. Love, fame, war, religion, political freedom, big dreams and big money―There's Only One Sin in Hollywood is a quintessential Hollywood novel and an LA classic for our times." ―Laura Warrell, author of Sweet, Soft, Plenty, Rhythm
"In Rasheed Newson's There's Only One Sin in Hollywood, inhumane history snares all lovelorn seekers, transforming fixers and actors into potent dreamers who frequent and abandon their fates with disastrous and extraordinary resolve. Propelled by a haunted jaunty narration that makes a lively case for the necessity of memory, There's Only One Sin in Hollywood illustrates and innervates the queer midcentury. This novel is an erotically-charged, violent masterpiece of love." ―Kyle Dillon Hertz, author of The Lookback Window
This information about There's Only One Sin in Hollywood was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Rasheed Newson is the author of the national bestseller My Government Means to Kill Me, which was selected as a Lambda Literary finalist for Gay Fiction and was named one of the "100 Notable Books of 2022" by The New York Times. He is also a television drama writer, producer, and showrunner. He codeveloped Bel-Air and worked on The Chi, Animal Kingdom, and Narcos, among other drama series. Newson is a 2025–26 American Library in Paris Visiting Fellow. He currently lives with his husband and their two children in Pasadena.
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