The third book in what Wagner calls his cellphone trilogy, this hip and humane Hollywood novel employs a clinical apparatus, invented to dissect the lives of major stars, on nobodies -- for example, a 25-year-old aspirant whose breakthrough is a role as a cadaver.
It grew naturally out of the book because the dead hero was a musician whose breakthrough song was called "Chase the Dream".
Last year's winner was Juno Temple, whose breakthrough role was in Notes on a Scandal (2006), alongside Cate Blanchett.
And "The Snow Geese" is written by Mr. White, whose breakthrough work was "The Other Place," a suspenseful drama (also on Broadway at the Friedman) that won high praise for its star, Laurie Metcalf, another fine stage actress most widely known for television, as the lovelorn sister in "Roseanne".
I ask Kierston Wareing (whose breakthrough role was as the lead in Ken Loach's 2007 film, It's a Free World) about working with Arnold, and she enthuses non-stop for five minutes flat.
Johnny Depp, whose breakthrough performance was in "Edward Scissorhands," in which he wore kabuki makeup and had long gardening shears for fingers, has continually hid his ridiculously beautiful face beneath layers of foundation and wigs.
The director, whose breakthrough film was Rosemary's Baby, returned to Poland last year for the opening of a Jewish museum in Warsaw and to support other projects aimed at raising the profile of Jewish culture in Poland.
And each time you ask she gets more expensive".Ms Ward, whose breakthrough book was "The Devil's Casino", about the fall of Lehman Brothers, has fun with the obsessive, hubristic cast of characters who have scrapped over the building (though the scene is at times too crowded with names and personal details).
One of hip-hop's natural supporting acts, whose breakthrough hit was a good-natured chant-along homage to his beloved Pittsburgh Steelers football team, Wiz Khalifa has always made for an unlikely crossover star – and an even less convincing bohemian eccentric, the image he has run with since becoming affianced to model Amber Rose.
But we also included writers whose breakthrough books were still ahead of them.
