Glamorous Notions by Megan Chance

March 27, 2025

Glamorous Notions by Megan Chance

Elsie Gruner escaped her family’s hog farm in rural Ohio by eloping with an aspiring actor. They travel across the country to Hollywood, earning money by hustling players at pool halls. When they arrive in Hollywood, Elsie takes a job in a cafe while her husband Walt struggles to break into the movies. But Walt is just a hustler, a mediocre actor who only gets small parts. Elsie dreams of being a dress designer and she gets her chance  when she wins an internship to an American art school in Rome. But Elsie is soon swept up in a dangerous game that threatens to end her budding career almost before it starts.

The 1950s are one of my least favorite eras to read about, because of the paranoia, the persecution, and the super-rigid morality. Anyone who wasn’t mainstream was wrong - if you associated with anyone who had subversive views, your job and your future could be in serious trouble. Gossip could ruin your life. Elsie/Lena, the main character, is extremely naive and is caught up first by a con man and later by a spy ring. A little too much description of costumes and studio in-fighting and name dropping, which made the narrative drag. Disappointing, not as good as the author’s earlier books. 

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC for review.

Film studio circa 1950

The Chelsea Girls by Fiona Davis

July 6, 2019

The Chelsea Girls by Fiona Davis

The Chelsea Hotel in New York was always a home for artists and eccentrics.  Meeting on a USO tour during World War II, Hazel and Maxine form a friendship that lasts after they return home.  Maxine goes to Hollywood to try to break into the movies, while Hazel moves into the Chelsea Hotel and works on an idea for a play.  Another Chelsea resident reads the play and hooks Hazel up with some of her theater connections.  Maxine’s movie career has stalled, so she returns to New York and takes a room at the Chelsea. When she hears that Hazel’s play will be performed on Broadway, she is determined to star as the leading lady.  Maxine secures the role, but it results in disaster as both women and many of their friends are swept up in McCarthyism, HUAC, and the communist witch hunts of the 1950s.  I can’t think of another novel that addresses the activities of HUAC and the consequences for artists, actors, and others in the creative fields this well.  The Chelsea Girls would make a great book club book, since there is much to discuss here.

(If you don’t know what HUAC was, it was the House Un-American Activities Committee, originally formed to investigate the possibility of spies sending information to Russia, but quickly descended into a witch hunt focusing on the entertainment industry.  Sort of like a precursor to Homeland Security.)

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC in return for a review.