Eight novels that capture the drama and intrigue of filmmaking

Joanna Howard is the author of the novel Porthole (2025) and the memoir Rerun Era (2019). Other works include Foreign Correspondent (2013), On the Winding Stair (2009), and In the Colorless Round, a prose collaboration with artist Rikki Ducornet (2006). She co-wrote Field Glass, a speculative novel, with Joanna Ruocco (2017). Her work has appeared in Conjunctions, The Paris Review, Verse, Bomb, and parts elsewhere. She lives in Denver and Providence and teaches at University of Denver.

At Electric Lit Howard tagged eight novels that "offer some compelling explorations of the drama and intrigue of filmmaking." One title on the list:

Innocents and Others by Dana Spiotta

Dana Spiotta’s Innocents and Others centers a pair of female filmmakers, Meadow and Carrie, whose long-standing friendship must endure the pressure-cooker of corporatized filmmaking as they grow into their very different film careers. Peppered with film history and the anxiety of influence—Orson Welles looms large—the book uses formal experimentation in the flavor of cinematic montage to mimic the technological immersion of modern filmmaking, and the fragmented modes of composition and communication it demands. Spiotta challenges any simple, singular category of woman-as-artist and maker, highlighting nuanced differences in aesthetic, ideology, and methodology for the two friends, and a difference in their feminisms, and strategies for navigating the male-dominated industry.

Read about the other entries on the list at Electric Lit.

Innocents and Others is among Rachel Kushner’s ten favorite books.

--Marshal Zeringue