"The It Girl and Me: A Novel of Clara Bow" by Laini Giles

Publisher:[United States] : Sepia Stories Publishing, [2017]
Edition:First edition.
Copyright Date:©2017
ISBN: 9780994734938
Characteristics: 430 pages

This is the second book from Edmonton's Laini Giles (the first being "The Forgotten Flapper"), and I have enjoyed them both. The thing I find hardest to grasp about these books is the amount of research that had to have gone into writing them.

The book is written from the perspective of Daisy DeVoe, Claira Bow's personal secretary, friend, and confidant and tells the tale of what it was like to live and work in Hollywood in the 1920's and 1930's. Daisy is I believe the perfect protagonist for this novel as you get to learn about all of Clara Bow's eccentricities through her. Her mother and three other members of her immediate family were all committed to instance asylums, her father chased virtually every skirt in Hollywood, and much more.

The story details the meeting, friendship, and sudden falling out between the two women when Clara's latest in a long line of paramours decides he wants to take over, run her life and to do this he has to get rid of Daisy. This is done, and Daisy ends up in jail, but she has a few tricks up her sleeve.

If the rest of the hollywood films stars of this era are as interesting to read about as these first two, then Laini will be writing for a long time.

"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.