When Stars Blow Out spins a brisk fable of fame in our time. Chloe Pitt, the imperious editor-in-chief of the sizzling glossy Pilgrim's Progress, has a grim job for her new star reporter Austin Baer. Off he jets to the Riviera to profile another writer: the aged Gregory McClintock, half a century ago the devoted observer of actors, dancers, musicians, and artists who now live in legend. With his forgotten essays about to appear as a book, the reclusive old-timer stands to break out as something of a legend in his own right. Baer arrives with plenty of attitude, and McClintock receives him with justifiable suspicion. Their fencing soon escalates into an all-out clash of cultures, lit up with unexpected flashes of mutual illumination as the past starts bleeding magically into the present.