Dream Jungle

Book excerpt: One of Jessica Hagedorn's most daring novels—“a deft and complex tale of corruption, fealty, and integrity” (The Baltimore Sun) In a Philippines of desperate beauty and rank corruption, two seemingly unrelated events occur: the discovery of an ancient lost tribe living in a remote mountainous area and the arrival of a celebrity-studded, American film crew, there to make an epic Vietnam War movie. But the lost tribe may be a clever hoax and the Hollywood movie seems doomed as the cast and crew continue to self-destruct in a cloud of drugs and ego. As the consequences of these events play out, four unforgettable characters—a wealthy, iconoclastic playboy; a woman ensnared in the sex industry; a Filipino-American writer; and a jaded actor—find themselves drawn irrevocably together in this lavish, sensual portrait of a nation in crisis.