470 pages
Published Jan. 1, 2019 by Riverhead Books.
In 1940, nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has just been kicked out of Vassar College, owing to her lackluster freshman-year performance. Her affluent parents send her to Manhattan to live with her Aunt Peg, who owns a flamboyant, crumbling midtown theater called the Lily Playhouse. There Vivian is introduced to an entire cosmos of unconventional and charismatic characters, from the fun-chasing showgirls to a sexy male actor, a grand-dame actress, a lady-killer writer, and no-nonsense stage manager. But when Vivian makes a personal mistake that results in professional scandal, it turns her new world upside down in ways that it will take her years to fully understand. Ultimately, though, it leads her to a new understanding of the kind of life she craves - and the kind of freedom it takes to pursue it. It will also lead to the love of her life, a love that stands out from all the …
In 1940, nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has just been kicked out of Vassar College, owing to her lackluster freshman-year performance. Her affluent parents send her to Manhattan to live with her Aunt Peg, who owns a flamboyant, crumbling midtown theater called the Lily Playhouse. There Vivian is introduced to an entire cosmos of unconventional and charismatic characters, from the fun-chasing showgirls to a sexy male actor, a grand-dame actress, a lady-killer writer, and no-nonsense stage manager. But when Vivian makes a personal mistake that results in professional scandal, it turns her new world upside down in ways that it will take her years to fully understand. Ultimately, though, it leads her to a new understanding of the kind of life she craves - and the kind of freedom it takes to pursue it. It will also lead to the love of her life, a love that stands out from all the rest. Now eighty-nine years old and telling her story at last, Vivian recalls how the events of those years altered the course of her life - and the gusto and autonomy with which she approached it. "At some point in a woman's life, she just gets tired of being ashamed all the time," she muses. "After that, she is free to become whoever she truly is."
I found the beginning of the book absolutely fantastic. Funny and very clever. Pretty disappointed with the second half. Incredible how such a fun story can end so boring. Also much more conservative than I thought it was.
Tough book to rate, here. When it drags, it really drags, but when it moves, it zips. Sometimes the frame story premise of being a written memoir is almost obnoxiously intrusive, other times it melds with the story so fluidly that you can't image it told any other way.
I liked it, though. It's all about a privileged, rich, sheltered white girl in the world's biggest city on the cusp of war, and the rebuilding after, but it doesn't revel in either the privilege, the judgment, or the inevitable comeuppance: It's acknowledged, it's accepted for what it was, and it moves on. It acknowledges a lot of other lives, and it moves on. That kind of slice of life gave it extra power for me.
Whether you love it, you hate it, or you tolerate is depends entirely on how listening to a stranger tell you their life story for …
Tough book to rate, here. When it drags, it really drags, but when it moves, it zips. Sometimes the frame story premise of being a written memoir is almost obnoxiously intrusive, other times it melds with the story so fluidly that you can't image it told any other way.
I liked it, though. It's all about a privileged, rich, sheltered white girl in the world's biggest city on the cusp of war, and the rebuilding after, but it doesn't revel in either the privilege, the judgment, or the inevitable comeuppance: It's acknowledged, it's accepted for what it was, and it moves on. It acknowledges a lot of other lives, and it moves on. That kind of slice of life gave it extra power for me.
Whether you love it, you hate it, or you tolerate is depends entirely on how listening to a stranger tell you their life story for six hours sounds to you.
