"What Makes Sammy Run?"

1) How close to fact is the sub-plot with the Writer's Guild and the breakaway group that Sammy joins?

2) Did anyone else find themselves admiring Sammmy more as the book went on? He does do some heartless things but many of the people he uses or double-crosses seem to be victims of their own passivity. He seems to be more the quintessential opportunist than the quintessential heel. Was this kind of behaviour so rare and frowned upon in the 1940s?

3) A similar question, but Al Mannheim seems ever more jaded, precious and riddled with inferiority as Sammy becomes successful. Is Schulberg positing him as an veryman character or are we supposed to notice that his flaws and morals are sometimes as unforgivable as Sammy's?

4) The book (or is it the narrator?) seems to have a very odd attitude towards sex. As Sammy steers a potential conquest towards his bedroom, he leaves Al alone with Billie, an attractive young naif. The paragraph closes with "But one thing you had to say for Billie, she was always kind in her way and always patient". What exactly is going on here?

I also had some things to say about the Jewish angle in the book, but I'll save them for later when they are more fully formed.