It’s an old adage but an accurate one – making a movie is like going to war, with an army of strangers enduring endless hardship for the sake of a common goal. Hollywood legend Tom Hanks is an expert on both films and warfare, having made his fair share of one about the other, and his first novel, The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece (following his bestselling 2017 short story collection, Common Type) is an affable ode to Hollywood and a broad reflection on both personal and national legacy, jam-packed with many of the actor’s well-documented preoccupations.

The book tells the story not of a person but of an intellectual property, beginning in 1947 in Lone Butte, California. Bob Falls, a US Marine flamethrower turned shell-shocked drifter, motorcycles into town after a run-in with the authorities (he jokes that he would ‘rather punch a cop than a clock’), and leaves a lasting impression on his young nephew, Robby. Flash-forward to 1971: Robby Andersen is now a pot-loving comic book artist in Oakland, penning a counter-culture one-shot based on distant memories of his uncle. Flash-forward again to present day, and Hollywood writer–director Bill Johnson, along with his crack producer Al Mac-Teer and a band of trusted collaborators, is combining the IP from Andersen’s comic with that of a sprawling superhero cinematic universe (clearly based on Marvel’s Avengers franchise). Johnson’s film, Knightshade: The Lathe of Firefall, is the ‘masterpiece’ of Hanks’s title, and the ins and outs of its making form the bulk of his novel.