City of Flickering Light

In one word: fun. Juliette Fay's tale of early Hollywood is a fun read, full of fictional characters whose personalities mesh and who bring out the best of the golden age of film...even when starring in escapades drawn from some of Hollywood's darker moments.

Irene Van Beck and Millie Martin met in a seedy burlesque show and planned their escape - from a moving train, no less - before burlesque could completely chew them up and spit them out. Troupe comedian Henry Weiss gambles on jumping after them and the trio of friends make their way to Hollywood together where Irene begins writing and Millie and Henry find work as extras. All is not peaches and cream, of course; any good story must have its sources of conflict, and this is no different, with Millie, Irene, and Henry gradually unfurling compelling backstories that ultimately bind them together in more ways than they could have anticipated when they made the literal leap.

There's no shortage of tales of Hollywood out there, but City of Flickering Light stands apart to me because of what it is not. It's not a fictionalized account of an actual person (i.e., The Girls in the Picture and Frances Marion or Louise Brooks in The Chaperone or even Loretta Young). As Fay writes in her author's note, she drew inspiration from actual events in Hollywood circa 1921 (such as the use of morphine on sets after accidents, or the accusations against Fatty Arbuckle, or, most effectively for Fay's story, the still-unsolved murder of director William Desmond Taylor), but the lack of real characters allows Fay greater leeway with her story than those other early-Hollywood offerings that rely on the comings and goings of actual people.

And, although, it's a small thing, the quotes that open each of the 47 chapters added zeitgeist to the book.

Five stars.