The Hollywood Daughter

February 6, 2017
Alcott, who has written before about Old Hollywood (A Touch of Stardust), returns with this affecting coming-of-age novel. Jessica Malloy is the daughter of a devoutly Catholic mother and a father who works as a PR executive with Selznick Pictures. His job involves selling Ingrid Bergman to the American public, which puts his career on the fast track until she has an affair and a child out of wedlock. Jessica idolizes Bergman, adores her father, but cannot connect with her cold and often-fragile mother. Alcott effectively uses Bergman’s 1950 fall from grace, seen through Jessica’s eyes, to illustrate the Catholic Church’s influence on the era’s culture, McCarthyism, and the constraints of women’s roles. This narrative alternates with 1959, in which Jessica, now a standoffish New York copywriter pigeonholed by her gender, she receives a mysterious invitation to attend the Academy Awards ceremony. The author draws in readers from the start with smooth writing. Her storytelling skillfully taps into Jessica’s black-and-white adolescent worldview and the distance she maintains from others as an adult, making both real—and surprisingly emotional. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM Partners.

January 1, 2017
A Hollywood publicist's daughter idolizes movie star Ingrid Bergman.It's 1959, and Jesse Malloy, a confirmed New Yorker, is assailing the still-impenetrable glass ceiling at Newsweek when she receives an unexpected invitation--to attend the Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles. She left her California girlhood behind in 1950 to attend Bennington College, and the invitation spurs memories and an extended flashback to a time when the destiny of her small family became intertwined with that of the luminous Bergman. In spottily period-appropriate language, a sun-dappled period in Jesse's life is revisited. Jesse's father, Gabriel, is a studio publicist whose career has skyrocketed, along with Bergman's, thanks to his shrewd positioning of the movie Casablanca. The family buys a Beverly Hills mansion with a pool. Jesse's mother, Vanessa, a devout Roman Catholic, enrolls Jesse at Saint Ann's, an all-girls Catholic school, where her sojourn is remarkably trauma-free. The true milestones of Jesse's adolescence are her brief encounters with Bergman. Her admiration for the star morphs into affinity when Saint Ann's, through the good offices of Gabriel, is selected as the location for The Bells of St. Mary's. Thanks to this film and her later star-vehicle Joan of Arc, Bergman becomes the darling of the Catholic Church and its censorious minions the Legion of Decency, whose movie ratings terrorize Hollywood. When Bergman leaves her stifling marriage for a liaison with director Roberto Rossellini that results in an out-of-wedlock child, all bets are off. Alcott capably depicts the undercurrents of a family challenged by high stakes and hairpin career turns in the redbaiting blacklist era, but the book is riddled with superfluous come-to-realization moments, such as "I was having my first glimmer of the fact that absolutes are tricky in the real world." The characters are appealing anyway, and their earnestness and good will, in the face of all that trickiness, are poignant. A troubled era in America's past brought to life.

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January 1, 2017
Alcott (A Touch of Stardust, 2015) returns to mid-twentieth-century Los Angeles with her novel about a young woman's emotional and cultural awakening. Jessica Jesse Malloy, who narrates in a vibrant voice, feels awkward growing up as the daughter of a fun-loving Selznick Studio publicist and a reserved Catholic woman who resists Hollywood's sinful influences. Jesse has always hero-worshipped Ingrid Bergman, and when the beautiful Swedish actress stars in The Bells of St. Mary's, which is filmed at Jesse's convent school, Catholics' admiration for her seems boundless. However, when Bergman's affair with Italian director Roberto Rossellini is discovered, the situation horrifies Hollywood's morality police and shatters Jesse's illusions. Alcott uses a fast-paced, efficient writing style and creates a believable portrait of a teenager navigating high school, potential romances, and her complicated world during the McCarthy years. The portions set in 1959, as Jesse returns home after a long absence, provide emotional closure. Jesse's parents, teachers, and Bergman herself are all sketched with subtlety. Another honest look at the real stories behind Hollywood's glamorous veneer.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Best-selling Alcott tells another tremendously appealing story with great skill and insight, extending her reign as a top popular historical novelist.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

November 1, 2016

A New York Times best-selling author of historical fiction, Alcott returns to the Hollywood setting of recent A Touch of Stardust with 17-year-old Jessica Malloy upended when her heroine, Ingrid Bergman, has a baby out of wedlock with Italian film director Roberto Rossellini.

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2017

Alcott (A Touch of Stardust; The Dressmaker), who is actually journalist Patricia O'Brien, uses her research skills to great advantage in this 1950s coming-of-age story, told from the point of view of Jesse Malloy, a young girl growing up in Hollywood. Her father is a studio PR executive trying to keep Ingrid Bergman's illicit romance with Italian film director Roberto Rossellini from damaging her box-office appeal; her mother is a devoted Catholic with secrets of her own. It's the era of McCarthyism and strict censorship promoted by the Catholic Church, and the resulting paranoia has a destructive impact on not only the studio system and its stars but also on Jesse and her parents' troubled marriage. Alcott is clearly a devoted movie fan, and her ending is something out of a classic film. Her technique of setting her characters against the backdrop of real events is largely successful owing to an engrossing plot and sympathetic protagonists. VERDICT Movie fans and readers of historical fiction will appreciate this loving tribute to Old Hollywood and its stars. [See Prepub Alert, 10/3/16.]--Elizabeth Safford, Boxford Town Lib., MA

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.