City of Flickering Light

February 25, 2019
In Fay’s good-hearted novel, Irene Van Beck, Millie Martin, and Henry Weiss jump from a moving train in 1921 to escape the burlesque show where they’re employed and its dangerous henchman and head to Hollywood. There they discover that their friendship plays the most important role in their search for fame, fortune, and happiness. Irene has an affinity for screenwriting, the camera adores the lovely Millie, and Henry’s handsome face takes him from set tailor to leading man. They each find romance; Henry’s passionate love affair with a male director is particularly well portrayed. Fay vividly captures the grit and glamour of 1920s Hollywood, and Gert Turner, from Fay’s previous novel, The Tumbling Turner Sisters, even makes an appearance. This talented trio’s journey isn’t free of tragedy, but their love and support for each other sees them through trying times. It’s a dishy but never salacious tale, chock full of details that will delight readers fascinated with silent films and what goes on behind the scenes.

March 15, 2019
Irene, Millie, and Henry literally stumble into Hollywood when they jump from a train carrying them to yet another demeaning gig as members of a tawdry burlesque troupe. Their escape unites the unlikely trio in a one for all and all for one camaraderie on a quest to find lodging and employment, not necessarily in that order. And they succeed in great degrees. Irene channels her creativity into a career as a screenwriter, while bubbly, flirtatious Millie lands work as a movie extra. But it is Henry who makes it big, his movie-star good looks landing him precisely that role in life. Yet their road to success is every bit as bumpy as the one that brought them to Hollywood, for Millie battles sexual assault and a drug habit, and Irene and Henry both find love in unconventional places. The descendant of a vaudevillian, Fay follows her tale of traveling acrobats, The Tumbling Turner Sisters (2016), with this atmospheric portrait of early Tinseltown, peppering her characters' escapades with real people and places and creating a buoyant tale of friendship and loyalty.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)