Alice Cary

NonfictionMemoir

Body Leaping Backward

Review by Alice Cary

Maureen Stanton’s childhood started out fairly idyllic. She grew up in a New England town in the 1960s as the third of seven children, living on a cul-de-sac, gathering around the piano and dancing to her father’s music, playing kickball and flashlight tag with the neighborhood gang and taking family trips to the beach. Nonetheless, Stanton’s mother often liked to remind her rowdy brood of the omnipresent state prison in their Massachusetts town, warning, “If you don’t behave, I’ll put you in Walpole Prison!”

Stanton’s family life took an abrupt turn one spring night just before she turned 12, when her parents announced, out of the blue, that they were separating. Money became tight, and Stanton’s mother returned to school to become a nurse. Before her mother achieved that goal, however, she started shoplifting. Stanton’s own life unraveled from that point, as she so eloquently describes in her mesmerizing memoir, Body Leaping Backward: Memoir of a Delinquent Girlhood.

Stanton’s account is an informative, intelligent read for anyone, young or old, trying to make sense of teenage rebellion. She spent most of her teen years high on angel dust, taking every drug available, including crystal meth, cocaine and acid. Teenage mischief became self-destructive and even criminal as she and her friends went on vandalism sprees.

Thankfully, this is a tale of redemption. By the end of high school, Stanton got a job, began counseling and rediscovered her love of learning. She realized that her parents’ divorce had broken her heart and that by suppressing her anger and sorrow, “I’d been inventing someone who was not me; no wonder I did not like that girl.” Decades later, as an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, Stanton muses, “When I hear about so many people addicted to opiates now, I wonder if that would have been me.” Body Leaping Backward is a well-told, insightful memoir that could hardly be more relevant today.

Maureen Stanton’s childhood started out fairly idyllic. She grew up in a New England town in the 1960s as the third of seven children, living on a cul-de-sac, gathering around the piano and dancing to her father’s music, playing kickball and flashlight tag with the neighborhood gang and taking family trips to the beach. Nonetheless, Stanton’s mother often liked to remind her rowdy brood of the omnipresent state prison in their Massachusetts town, warning, “If you don’t behave, I’ll put you in Walpole Prison!”

Stanton’s family life took an abrupt turn one spring night just before she turned 12, when her parents announced, out of the blue, that they were separating. Money became tight, and Stanton’s mother returned to school to become a nurse. Before her mother achieved that goal, however, she started shoplifting. Stanton’s own life unraveled from that point, as she so eloquently describes in her mesmerizing memoir, Body Leaping Backward: Memoir of a Delinquent Girlhood.

Children's & YAMiddle Grade

A Tale Magnolious

Review by Alice Cary

Life looks bleak for 10-year-old Nitty Luce, who, after escaping Grimsgate Orphanage, steals a pouch full of strange, shimmering seeds. Things take an even stranger turn when she encounters a circus elephant about to be hanged for supposedly killing her trainer. In a moment of mutual desperation, Nitty befriends the elephant, named Magnolious, and the pair makes a bold escape.

That’s the action-packed opening of Suzanne Nelson’s tender-hearted Dust Bowl fantasy, A Tale Magnolious. The runaways are taken in by a brusque, lonely farmer named Windle Homes in the dying town of Fortune’s Bluff. Nitty also befriends Twitch, a sickly boy determined to bring down dastardly Mayor Neezer Snollygost, who wants to flatten the town and build high-rises.

In an intriguing author’s note, Nelson explains that her fantastical novel was inspired by a photograph of a circus elephant named Mary who was publicly executed in 1916 in Erwin, Tennessee, after killing her trainer. Once Nelson saw the horrific image, she dreamed of a girl running through a town square, carrying a mysterious stolen object, finding shelter between an elephant’s front legs. The tale Nelson went on to write has an old-fashioned, Dickensian feel and plenty of vocabulary flair, with names like Miz Turngiddy and words like catawampus. It’s also an allegory about empowerment when adults are intimidated by an evil politician. In Fortune’s Bluff, it’s kids to the rescue, with the help of one mighty elephant.

This is a walloping romp that delivers an important message: “Each and every one of us has a say when it comes to what is right.”

Life looks bleak for 10-year-old Nitty Luce, who, after escaping Grimsgate Orphanage, steals a pouch full of strange, shimmering seeds. Things take an even stranger turn when she encounters a circus elephant about to be hanged for supposedly killing her trainer. In a moment of mutual desperation, Nitty befriends the elephant, named Magnolious, and the pair makes a bold escape.

NonfictionSocial Science

In Pain

Review by Alice Cary

May 23, 2015, started out as a particularly good day for Travis Rieder. He enjoyed the early morning hours with his toddler daughter while his wife slept, then set out for a motorcycle tour in the mountains. Less than three blocks into his ride, however, disaster struck when a van pulled out of an intersection and broadsided Rieder, traumatically injuring his left foot. While doctors were able to salvage the limb, he was left with an open wound for a month and faced multiple surgeries, years of recovery and the news that he was unlikely to ever walk unaided.

Sadly, there was even more to this nightmare. Those first months of seemingly endless, searing pain left Rieder addicted to opioids, with no medical professionals willing or able to help him withdraw from his medications, despite his and his wife’s desperate pleas for help. “I thought I would die—either from the withdrawal itself or by my own hand,” Rieder writes in his powerful, informative memoir, In Pain: A Bioethicist’s Personal Struggle With Opioids.

A research scholar at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, Rieder is uniquely equipped to narrate not only his own story but also a broader look at America’s opioid problem. His prose is clear and compelling, whether he’s describing a torturous night spent writhing on the bathroom floor, not sure he can survive until morning, or examining the science and history of addiction and the changes needed in our health care system and society’s approach to the issue. Never pedantic, Rieder eloquently explains that addiction is “a health problem rather than a criminal justice problem” that needs to be addressed “with evidence-based therapies rather than punishment.”

Rieder was lucky. His unyielding determination allowed him to kick his opioid habit and learn to walk without assistance. Realizing that he was hardly alone in his addiction struggle, he listened to the advice of his colleagues: “Tell the story. Shine a light. Don’t let the suffering of people . . . exist in darkness anymore.”

The result is an important book that goes hand in hand with Beth Macy’s Dopesick. Readers of both will not only be enlightened but likely find their attitudes about this devastating crisis transformed.

A research scholar at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, Rieder is uniquely equipped to narrate not only his own story but also a broader look at America’s opioid problem. His prose is clear and compelling, whether he’s describing a torturous night spent writhing on the bathroom floor, not sure he can survive until morning, or examining the science and history of addiction and the changes needed in our health care system and society’s approach to the issue. Never pedantic, Rieder eloquently explains that addiction is “a health problem rather than a criminal justice problem” that needs to be addressed “with evidence-based therapies rather than punishment.”
Nonfiction

Mr. Know-It-All

Review by Alice Cary

If you’re a John Waters fan, you have a good idea of what to expect in a book of essays by this Baltimore film producer and proud provocateur. Famous for movies like Hairspray, Pink Flamingos, Serial Mom and Polyester, he’s been called the Pope of Trash, the Prince of Puke, the Ayatollah of Crud—and tours with a comedy show he calls This Filthy World. So if you’re a person who’s easily offended, take it from me: Don’t even read the reviews, much less crack open the cover of Waters’ latest book, Mr. Know-It-All: The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder.

But if you’re still with me, there’s no denying that Waters is a whip-smart (he’d no doubt like that description), funny, multitalented and unique cultural icon. He’s also an artist and book collector, and these essays reflect his endless assortment of interests—ranging from his movie-making memories (Patty Hearst thought he was kidding when he asked her to be in a movie) and music preferences (including Glenn Gould, Maria Callas, Eminem and Alvin and the Chipmunks) to his planning of and taking what he calls “a senior-citizen acid trip.” (“I had made it,” he notes afterward. “But there was absolutely no reason to ever do it again.”)

“Somehow I became respectable,” Waters notes in his opening essay. “What the hell has happened?” He later counters with a chapter called “The Toilet,” which begins, “OK, if you ever write a book, you must have a dirty chapter. Here’s mine.” Enough said.

In “Going Hollywood,” he notes that he may be the only casting director to give a young (and unknown) Brad Pitt the boot, finding him too handsome for the quirky character he needed in Cry-Baby. Waters’ homage to art created by animals is not only fun but fascinating. (“Want to speculate in the art market? I’m telling you what to buy―monkey art. Yes, paintings by chimpanzees.”) In “Overexposed,” a discussion of his speaking and comedy tours, Waters observes, “librarians are always smart, a little nuts, and know how to party.” His multitude of descriptions never cease to amuse; he calls singer 50 Cent “a nouveau-riche, homophobic braggart―the Donald Trump-meets-Chick-fil-A of rap.”

While it’s certainly not a book for everyone, Waters’ legion of admirers will be lining up in droves to hop aboard the Mr. Know-It-All bus.

If you’re a person who’s easily offended, don’t even read the reviews, much less crack open the cover of John Waters’ latest book, Mr. Know-It-All.
Children's & YAPicture Book

Hum and Swish

Review by Alice Cary

A young girl named Jamie digs sand and shells on a rock-strewn, sandy beach, completely immersed in the rhythm of her own creative world in Hum and Swish, a reflective picture book from author-illustrator Matt Myers.

“Jamie and the sea are friends. Jamie hums. The waves swish,” writes Myers. As Jamie’s unique rock and shell creations take shape―some resembling people, others resembling increasingly elaborate creatures―a parade of passersby and even her parents cheerily inquire about what she’s making, much to Jamie’s increasing ire. She’s not sure, and no one seems to understand that until a woman sets up her easel nearby. When Jamie asks what she’s making, the woman says, “I don’t know yet,” and both continue to work side by side, quietly enjoying each other’s presence until each proudly completes and shares her masterpiece.

Myers’ understated storyline and moody ocean scenes perfectly complement Jamie’s introspective world and her desire to follow her own artistic instincts. The story’s natural simplicity and Myers’ intriguing illustrations make for a kid-pleasing examination of both the joy and marvelous uncertainty of the artistic process.

A young girl named Jamie digs sand and shells on a rock-strewn, sandy beach, completely immersed in the rhythm of her own creative world in Hum and Swish, a reflective picture book from author-illustrator Matt Myers.

NonfictionTrue Crime

Furious Hours

Review by Alice Cary

While Harper Lee fans were almost unanimously disenchanted with the 2015 publication of her eons-awaited second novel, Go Set a Watchman, they’ll likely be intrigued by Casey Cep’s account of the true crime book that Lee attempted but ultimately failed to write.

Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee tells the strange saga of Reverend Willie Maxwell, a black Alabama preacher accused of murdering five members of his family for insurance money in the 1970s. Law enforcement officers and insurance officials suspected something was up but had no hard evidence, while Maxwell’s followers whispered rumors of voodoo after his relatives kept turning up dead by the side of the road. 

At the funeral of Maxwell’s last victim, his 16-year-old stepdaughter, he was shot dead by one of the girl’s relatives, Robert Burns, who until that moment had been a hardworking, law-abiding family man. Amazingly, despite the fact that hundreds of mourners witnessed the shooting, Burns was ultimately acquitted of his crime. 

Attending the trial was Lee, who wrote that Maxwell “might not have believed in what he preached, he might not have believed in voodoo, but he had a profound and abiding belief in insurance.” After studying law at the University of Alabama, Lee was naturally intrigued by the Maxwell story—although she realized “all too well that the story of a black serial killer wasn’t what readers would expect from the author of To Kill a Mockingbird.” She spent nearly a decade working on a manuscript she called “The Reverend” but ultimately abandoned the project, much to the disappointment of many of the citizens of Alexander City, where Maxwell’s murder took place.

Cep, a thorough researcher and polished writer, divides this sprawling tale into three parts: first telling Maxwell’s story, then chronicling the lawyer who once had Maxwell as a client and ultimately represented Maxwell’s killer, and finally explaining the famous novelist’s fascination with and involvement in the case.

Harper Lee fans may find themselves impatient to read about her, as she doesn’t appear until more than halfway through the book, but they’ll be rewarded for the wait. While the myriad mysteries about Lee’s life seem unlikely to ever be resolved, Furious Hours offers an absorbing glimpse into the gifted but guarded life of this enigmatic literary hero.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a Q&A with Casey Cep for Furious Hours.

Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee tells the strange saga of Reverend Willie Maxwell, a black Alabama preacher accused of murdering five members of his family for insurance money in the 1970s. Law enforcement officers and insurance officials suspected something was up but had no hard evidence, while Maxwell’s followers whispered rumors of voodoo after his relatives kept turning up dead by the side of the road. 

Children's & YAMiddle Grade

The Line Tender

Review by Alice Cary

Kate Allen’s noteworthy debut novel, The Line Tender, is a big-hearted story about friendship, grief and recovery set in the 1990s. Twelve-year-old Lucy Everhart’s summer is off to an exciting start when a fisherman in her town of Rockport, Massachusetts, catches a great white shark. Lucy and her best friend and neighbor Fred are overjoyed because they’re working on a field guide of local animals for their science project, with Lucy illustrating and Fred providing scientific data of specimens they encounter, and this will be an exciting entry. But the great white stirs up memories of Lucy’s mother, a shark expert who died of an aneurysm five years ago.

Unfortunately, another tragedy strikes and kills another loved one, and Lucy and her father, a diver for the police department, are left to piece their lives together once again. Allen seamlessly weaves in intriguing facts about marine biology throughout this story, and her narration is strikingly authentic and subtly nuanced, whether she’s describing a joyful afternoon trip into Harvard Square or the painful moments when Lucy’s grief is so all-consuming that she can’t eat for fear of choking.

Lucy’s heartache does help lead her back to her mother, “whom everyone seemed to know better” than she did. She becomes engrossed in a research proposal her mother wrote just before her death to tag and study great white sharks, whose numbers seem to be increasing off the New England coast. 

A grieving Lucy is buoyed by a cast of helpful adults, including her father, a kind neighbor, her science teacher, a guidance counselor, and a number of researchers who worked with her mother, including one who says, “All life is interconnected. If one species moves away or becomes extinct, the order shifts.” Numerous middle grade books deal with grief, but few do it so beautifully―and hopefully―as The Line Tender.

Numerous middle grade books deal with grief, but few do it so beautifully―and hopefully―as The Line Tender.

NonfictionTrue Crime

The Last Stone

Review by Alice Cary

For 38 years, an unimaginable crime remained a complete mystery: On March 29, 1975, Katherine and Sheila Lyon, ages 10 and 12, disappeared from a shopping plaza in Wheaton, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. The sisters were never seen again. 

Fast forward to 2013, when Chris Homrock, the last remaining investigator of a cold case squad, turned his attention to a six-page transcript from April 1, 1975: the testimony of Lloyd Welch, who as a teenager claimed to have seen a man lead the Lyon girls out of the mall. 

What unfolded next is the subject of Mark Bowden’s mesmerizing The Last Stone. The bestselling author of Black Hawk Down had been haunted by the girls’ disappearance ever since reporting on it as a 23-year-old for the Baltimore News American. Relying on videos and transcripts, Bowden takes readers ringside as Homrock and three other savvy investigators spend 10 long interview sessions trying to squeeze as much of the slippery truth as possible out of Welch, a compulsive liar finishing up a prison sentence in Delaware for sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl. Words pour out of Welch’s mouth like a poisonous water fountain, his ever-changing statements about his involvement with the Lyon sisters always framed to make himself seem as innocent as possible. 

Like any true crime book, especially one involving children, this isn’t for the faint of heart, but rest assured, it’s an in-depth master study of criminal psychology and interrogation. As one investigator explained, “We knew we were dealing with a monster, but we had to entertain him in a fashion. . . . We had to endure the ‘friendship’ and go through the crap to get as many of the answers as we could.”

In the tradition of the “Making a Murderer” Netflix series and the “Serial” podcast, The Last Stone will leave readers on the edge of their seats as a group of indefatigable detectives tries to unearth the carefully concealed, unspeakable truths behind a decades-old tragedy. 

A group of indefatigable detectives tries to unearth the carefully concealed, unspeakable truths behind a decades-old tragedy.

FictionLiterary Fiction

The Other Americans

Review by Alice Cary

When Driss Guerraoui, the owner of a diner near Joshua Tree National Park, leaves his restaurant one night, he’s killed in a mysterious hit-and-run while crossing the street. But this wasn’t an accident; it was murder, concludes his daughter Nora, as a variety of surprising details about her father’s life emerge. He was, after all, feuding with Anderson Baker, the owner of the bowling alley next door.

As aspiring composer Nora returns to her hometown to help run the family diner and grieve with her mother and sister, she encounters a variety of ghosts from her childhood, including Baker’s son, A.J., who in high school wrote “raghead” on her locker, bullying her because her parents emigrated from Morocco out of fear of political unrest.

Moroccan-born Laila Lalami was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for The Moor’s Account, and her much-anticipated fourth book, The Other Americans, doesn’t disappoint. The story carefully unfolds from multiple viewpoints, including that of Nora’s immigrant mother, Maryam; her jealous and seemingly highly successful sister, Salma; and even her dead father. There’s also Detective Coleman, an African-American woman investigating the case, as well as a Mexican immigrant who witnessed Driss’ death and remains haunted by his ghost but is afraid to come forward and risk deportation. Nora also reconnects with her high school friend Jeremy, now an Iraq War veteran and sheriff’s deputy.

Lalami’s crisp, straightforward prose offers the perfect counterpoint to the complexity of her plot, which artfully interweaves past and present. Reminiscent of Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth in its depiction of the enduring effects of family secrets and betrayals, The Other Americans also addresses a multitude of other issues—immigration, prejudice, post-traumatic stress, love and murder—with what can only be described as magical finesse.

When Driss Guerraoui, the owner of a diner near Joshua Tree National Park, leaves his restaurant one night, he’s killed in a mysterious hit-and-run while crossing the street. But this wasn’t an accident; it was murder, concludes his daughter Nora, as a variety of surprising details about her father’s life emerge. He was, after all, feuding with Anderson Baker, the owner of the bowling alley next door.

Children's & YAPicture Book

Perfect

Review by Alice Cary

A pencil and an eraser―could there be a more perfect pair?

But in author and illustrator Max Amato’s raucously fun debut picture book, Perfect, an epic battle ensues between a rectangular pink eraser and a bright yellow pencil. Eraser throws down the gauntlet on the very first page, making it clear he likes things “perfectly clean,”  with absolutely no squiggles or smudges. He basks amidst a spread of stark white pages, smugly stating, “No pencil can mess with me.” Eraser has met his match, however, as Pencil promptly taunts Eraser by drawing a goofy but spot-on caricature. Then the chase is on, where Amato fills the pages with drawings, smudges and glorious scatterings of eraser crumbs.

With spare text and simple but memorable illustrations, Amato has created an imaginative tale about what can happen when opposites collide. Using a combination of photographs and hand-drawn images, he effectively anthropomorphizes Pencil and Eraser, making great use of Pencil’s cavalcade of marks and Eraser’s endless attempts at cleanup. The faces of these warriors convey a full range of emotion―especially that of indomitable Eraser, who becomes awash in fury and chagrin when he finds himself lost in a forest of trees drawn by Pencil that soon turn the book’s pages into a smothering sea of black.

In the end, Eraser finds an ingenious way to escape Pencil’s endless sea of pencil marks. But when all is said and done, Eraser ultimately realizes he misses Pencil, and a friendship is born. Yes, these two may drive each other bananas, but Eraser concludes that a perfectly clean page without any challenge turns out to be boring and lonely.

Full of an abundance of heart, non-stop action and delightfully clever illustrations, Perfect is sure to be a beloved hit.

In author and illustrator Max Amato’s raucously fun debut picture book, Perfect, an epic battle ensues between a rectangular pink eraser and a bright yellow pencil.

Children's & YAMiddle Grade

Right as Rain

Review by Alice Cary

In author Lindsey Stoddard’s brimming-with-life novel, Right as Rain, white sixth-grader Rain Andrews’ mother is a neuroscientist who studies the brain, but she can’t fix her family’s broken hearts after Rain’s beloved older brother, Guthrie, is killed in a car accident. Stoddard tackles grief head-on in her moving, uplifting portrayal of learning to live and embrace life amid loss.

Determined to make a fresh start, Rain’s mom takes a new research job at Columbia University, moving the family to an apartment in Hamilton Heights and leaving behind virtually all of their belongings in the Vermont town that Rain adores. Rain’s grief-stricken dad is seriously depressed and stays in bed for much of the day, while Rain feels responsible for Guthrie’s death because she helped him sneak out of the house on that fateful night―the details of which are gradually revealed in short chapters intertwined with the main narrative. But Rain’s dad, who works in construction, has taught her that “If you take down a weight-bearing wall without setting up a system of support beams, the whole weight of the house will collapse down on you. But if you build up a strong system of support beams, you can take the weight right off.”

While Stoddard set her equally sensitive first novel, Just Like Jackie, in a small Vermont town, she excels at portraying the rich diversity of Rain’s new Latinx neighborhood, where she realizes that “even though my skin doesn’t match any skin here . . . I’m not sticking out.” Rain’s teacher is quietly understanding, and she befriends Nestor, a homeless man. She also finds support at Ms. Dacie’s place, an afterschool program that welcomes all. Rain’s main salvation is running, and before long, she becomes part of a championship relay team that brings new friendships with Amelia, who has a stutter; Ana, who has lived in poverty; and her Dominican neighbor, Frankie.

Stoddard has woven a rich cityscape and plot, and while a few threads feel a bit predictable, she doesn’t settle for easy answers as Rain and her family navigate the complexities of rebuilding a life in the midst of grief. 

In author Lindsey Stoddard’s brimming-with-life novel, Right as Rain, white sixth-grader Rain Andrews’ mother is a neuroscientist who studies the brain, but she can’t fix her family’s broken hearts after Rain’s beloved older brother, Guthrie, is killed in a car accident. Stoddard tackles grief head-on in her moving, uplifting portrayal of learning to live and embrace life amid loss.

NonfictionTrue Crime

The Trial of Lizzie Borden

Review by Alice Cary

More than 125 years later, the question remains: Did Lizzie Borden murder her father and stepmother in their Fall River, Massachusetts, home on a quiet summer day in 1892? This perennially perplexing case began to intrigue Cara Robertson during her student years at Harvard and later became the subject of her senior thesis. Now, decades later, Robertson is an accomplished lawyer who has used her legal skills and research savvy to recount the crime, arrest, trial and its aftermath in the highly readable The Trial of Lizzie Borden.

Relying solely on evidence, never speculation, Robertson is an adept, fair-minded guide with a gift for organization and nuance. Seventy-two photos help bring the gruesomeness to life—including photos of the dead bodies and their shattered skulls, presented as evidence in the trial. The murders are haunting for their seeming impossibility and brutality (though there weren’t 40 whacks, as the childhood rhyme suggests―Borden’s father suffered 10 blows to his face, while her stepmother died of 18 head wounds). How such vicious attacks happened with no one noticing is bedeviling; no suspects emerged besides Borden, an elegantly dressed 32-year-old church volunteer who remained remarkably composed during the wildly publicized trial, reading the works of Charles Dickens and Sir Walter Scott in her jail cell.

Readers will feel as though they’re part of the investigation and trial, which drew hundreds of gawkers vying for seats inside the drama-filled courthouse. Robertson describes many astonishing moments, such as when the medical examiner set down the skull of Andrew Borden and “the old man’s jaw sagged back and forth in a grisly suggestion of speech.” One journalist wrote, “Was he trying to testify?” If only that were the case!

This murderous tale has inspired numerous books (such as See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt), movies, a ballet and an opera. The Trial of Lizzie Borden is a welcome addition to the lore, the perfect starting point for modern-day readers to launch their own inquiries.

More than 125 years later, the question remains: Did Lizzie Borden murder her father and stepmother in their Fall River, Massachusetts, home on a quiet summer day in 1892? This perennially perplexing case began to intrigue Cara Robertson during her student years at Harvard and later became the subject of her senior thesis. Now, decades later, Robertson is an accomplished lawyer who has used her legal skills and research savvy to recount the crime, arrest, trial and its aftermath in the highly readable The Trial of Lizzie Borden.

NonfictionBiography

The Lady from the Black Lagoon

Review by Alice Cary

When horror superfan and film producer Mallory O’Meara watched The Creature from the Black Lagoon at age 17, her life changed forever. She found a lifelong heroine when she discovered that the movie’s titular creature had been created by a female artist named Milicent Patrick. “For all of my adult life and film career, Milicent Patrick has been a guiding light, a silent friend, a beacon reminding me that I belonged,” O’Meara writes.

Patrick was a footnote long lost to film history, but O’Meara has decided to change all that with her fascinating biography, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick. Patrick’s story is enthralling: She spent part of her childhood on the grounds of Hearst Castle, where her megalomaniac father was an architect. A talented artist, she became one of Disney’s first animators and, later, the only woman to create a classic Hollywood monster―only to be fired because her boss was jealous of the attention she was receiving. Nonetheless, her legacy continues to inspire, as her creature was the impetus behind the Oscar-winning film The Shape of Water. Patrick was also an actress (albeit not a great one) and a glamorous personality who embodied the allure of Hollywood.

Those details alone would be enough to make this an interesting read, but O’Meara adds her own unique narrative voice, including 177 fact-filled, endlessly funny footnotes. This is a book that O’Meara was born to write, and she seamlessly meshes her own life story with that of her heroine in a way similar to how Julie Powell paid tribute to Julia Child in Julie and Julia. Although O’Meara quickly discovered that her quest to learn more about Patrick was “a researcher’s nightmare,” she makes the journey unforgettable.

“Uncovering her life over the past two years,” O’Meara writes, “has helped me see the things I need to do to protect more women from her fate. It’s helped me be brave, be strong and be loud.”

Even if you’re not a fan of horror films, The Lady from the Black Lagoon is a riveting, sincere Hollywood saga that will quickly win your heart.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our Q&A with Mallory O’Meara for The Lady from the Black Lagoon.

When horror superfan and film producer Mallory O’Meara watched The Creature from the Black Lagoon at age 17, her life changed forever. She found a lifelong heroine when she discovered that the movie’s titular creature had been created by a female artist named Milicent Patrick. “For all of my adult life and film career, Milicent Patrick has been a guiding light, a silent friend, a beacon reminding me that I belonged,” O’Meara writes.

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