Searching for Grace Kelly

November 1, 2014
Three young women on their own in 1950s New York run into man trouble galore. Celebrity interviewer Callahan spins an old-fashioned tale of romance and drama in this debut novel set in the Barbizon Hotel for Women, inspired by an article the author wrote for Vanity Fair. After a brief prologue in December 1955, in which an unnamed character is up on a roof about to jump, the story skips back to June of that year, when Connecticut debutante Laura Dixon arrives in New York for the summer to work on the Mademoiselle college issue. Her roommate, Dolly Hickey from Utica, is the classic sidekick-short, chubby, voluble and studying to be a secretary at Katie Gibbs. Their trio of friends is rounded out by an aspiring singer from England, the wisecracking, flame-haired Vivian Windsor, currently putting in time as a cigarette girl at the Stork Club. Despite the Barbizon's strict rules about male visitors, romantic complications for all three ensue forthwith. Laura is wooed by New York's most eligible bachelor, department store heir Box Barnes-but she's also falling for a brainy Greenwich Village bartender. Vivian is involved with a rough character named Nicola Accardi, whose "skin was a tawny olive, topped by a fulsome mane of black hair that normally curved back from his forehead....There was something impossibly feral that enveloped him like a fog." Dolly is offered less exciting options but pursues them with great energy and focus. Who gets the dreamboat? Who gets the dud? And most pressing, who was that on top of the building? If you're in close communion with your inner teenage girl, this one's for you.

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November 1, 2014

In the 1950s, gals with guts and a dream, could leave their small-town life and head for the Big Apple, where the Barbizon Hotel for Women awaited. This is where young ladies lived while chasing fame, fortune, and a career. Vanity Fair contributing editor Callahan captures the essence of the Barbizon as it really was--part dorm, refuge, and place of awakening. The three main characters experience life in New York from different perspectives. Laura is an elegant Smith College student who lands a prestigious internship at Mademoiselle magazine. Dolly, a plain yet spunky working girl, attends secretarial school and does some serious husband hunting. Vivian, a gorgeous Brit, dreams of being a famous singer but for now works as a cigarette girl at the hottest nightclub. All three tangle with young men, and reach for their dreams. They experience the city fully, from the seedy, intellectual Beat scene to Madison Avenue's upper crust. VERDICT Callahan's debut novel truly captures glamorous New York City from young women's perspective in the 1950s. For aficionados of anything from the Fifties and the movie The Best of Everything (1959).--Beth Gibbs, Davidson NC

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October 15, 2014
Vanity Fair contributing editor Callahan's deliciously stylish, retro first novel, set in Manhattan's Barbizon Hotel for Women, circa 1955, stems from an article he wrote about this legendary charm school and dormitory that sheltered many future stars, including Grace Kelly. Callahan's covertly rebellious protagonist, Laura Dixon, a Connecticut debutante with literary pretensions, has a Kelly look but a Katharine Hepburn flair for fetchingly awkward frankness. She moves into the Barbizon after winning a coveted summer appointment as a college editor for Mademoiselle, following the footsteps of Sylvia Plath, who fictionalized her experiences in The Bell Jar (1963). Callahan's polished soap opera is more in line with the then wildly scandalous novel, Peyton Place (1956). Dolly, Laura's bubbly secretary roommate, even works at the book's publisher, while their new friend, Vivian, an aspiring singer, is employed as a cigarette girl at the Stork Club. As each woman becomes entangled with mysterious, even dangerous men, Callahan suavely combines literary finesse and pulp fiction to create a fast-moving, heart-wrenching tale of romance and tragedy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)