The Great Pretenders

April 1, 2019

Raised by her grandparents, who built Empire Pictures, Roxanne Granville grew up in luxury. Returning to Hollywood for her grandmother's funeral in 1953, she faces uncertainty. Her grandfather had divorced his wife of 40 years to marry a young actress and also had fired his best screenwriters for alleged Communist ties. Determined to forge a path outside Empire, Roxanne nevertheless relies on her connections and inheritance to begin her own agency. She sells scripts by blacklisted authors fronted by other writers, but her professional gambles are trivial compared with a romance with an African American journalist. His coverage of the Montgomery bus boycott gains national attention, but his family's fears for his safety because of his relationship with Roxanne prove prescient. Then the truth about her agency's writers come to light, and her career crumbles. Yet, changes in entertainment and society offer hope for the future. Kalpakian loads her pages with references to famous actors and films, then creates numerous characters and interwoven subplots, many dependent on unlikely coincidences. A reader's guide signals likely marketing to book groups. VERDICT Historical romance fans will benefit from some knowledge of the blacklist and early civil rights struggles. Film buffs will appreciate the many cinematic references. [See Prepub Alert, 10/29/18.]--Kathy Piehl, Minnesota State Univ. Lib., Mankato

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2019
Kalpakian, author of The Memoir Club (2004), wades into the waters of historical fiction with this yarn about a young woman contending with the pressures and prejudices of Hollywood in the 1950s. All but abandoned by her feckless parents as a child, Roxanne was raised by her doting grandmother and her powerful grandfather, the head of the flourishing Empire Pictures. After her grandmother's sudden death, Roxanne spurns her grandfather?who has been having an affair with a young actress?moving out of the family home and resolving to become a literary talent agent. When her sleazy boss comes on to her, Roxanne decides to set out her own shingle, and she cultivates a stable of gifted young screenwriters. But when approached by one of her grandmother's dear friends, a writer who has fallen on hard times after being branded a Communist and blacklisted, Roxanne decides to help him, a decision that has major consequences for her and the African American journalist she falls in love with. Touching on everything from politically motivated witch hunts to racism, Kalpakian's timely tale vividly evokes 1950s Los Angeles.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)