"The Forgotten Flapper - A Novel of Olive Thomas" by Laini Giles

Publisher:[United States] : Sepia Stories Publishing, [2015]
Edition:First edition.
Copyright Date:©2015
ISBN: 9780994734907
Characteristics: 412 pages

This novel is a definite departure from the books I normally read and review, but I had been meaning to read it for quite some time as I thought I knew how much work Laini Giles put into writing it (she is a local author). I however sadly underestimated the scope of this work, as the research alone would likely be equivalent to what some students do for a Master's thesis. I'm not sure if she kept an account of the number of hours research she did, but I'm sure it is easily in the hundreds of hours. Laini wrote this novel in such a way that you can easily believe that this is Olive's actual auto-biography, and once you start it is an extremely difficult story to put down.

The novel itself examines and recounts the life of Olive Thomas one of the original silent movies stars from her childhood in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, her being chosen as the Most Beautiful Girl in New York City, her time in the Zeigfield Follies, her modelling career, her forays into directing and screen writing, through to her untimely death in 1920 in Neuilly-Our-Seine, France when she was 25. Woven throughout this is the life she lived being related by marriage to the Pickford clan which was tumultuous to say the least. We are also given glimpses of other famous actors and actresses such as W. C. Fields, Mary Pickford, Jack Pickford, to name but a few and how they interacted with Olive, and the rest of Hollywood.

Since 2015 Laini has released another book entitled "The IT Girl and Me" which tells of the life of Clara Bow, and is currently working on her third "Bathing Beauty" about Marie Prevost.