The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard

by Erin McGraw

Book Overview

"I couldn't cook but I could sew. It would have been better the other way around." Trapped in Kansas at the turn of the twentieth century, Nell Plat is seventeen, unhappily married, and the mother of two baby girls. No reality could be further from her secret dreams of glamour and excitement, dreams that will tempt her to do the unthinkable and run away to the glittering wonderland of Los Angeles and the burgeoning motion picture industry.

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0547237855
• ISBN13: 9780547237855
• Release Date: August 2009
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Great read!

My first Erin McGraw book, and I'm now looking forward to reading her 3 previous ones. I love "rags to riches" tales...this one was rags to almost riches to an ending that I THINK was happy. I really cared for the main character, which can make or break a book for me.

A Literary Page-Turner

It's rare that a novel which is considered "literary" is also a page-turner, but The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard definitely fits this bill. I finished this novel in just a couple of days because the main character seems so real. McGraw makes you feel as if you stepped inside Nell Plat's skin as she makes her harrowing life choices. Who wouldn't want to leave a hardscrabble Kansas farm for the bright lights of Hollywood? Nell's efforts at reinvention are more riveting than Madonna's, but this is no easy fairy tale, and her every move comes back to haunt her--especially when her abandoned daughters arrive at her doorstep! My only wish is that Nell could have attended at least one Hollywood premier, and that we, as readers, could have seen her tailor the costumes of some of the stars of her day, like Clara Bow or Errol Flynn. I would have loved to have seen Nell's reaction to the reality behind all the glitter! But no matter--stitch for stitch, The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard is a wonderful examination of our Amerian urge for self-determination, even when that means you have to wing it a little . . .

I couldn't put it down!

This book was a welcome surprise to me. I loved it! I have never read this author's work before but now I want to read her other books. The story was engaging and pulled me in from the start. I enjoyed the rhythm of the writing and found the old Kansas farm dialect and characters completely believable. Fast forward to Hollywood and once again I wholly believed in the character - her mannerisms, speech, behaviors, decisions. Later in the book, after a lifechanging event happens to the main character, I had to make myself slow my reading - I naturally sped up because I couldn't wait to see what would happen next. I was sure that with each turn of the page something scandalous or shocking would happen. When subsequent major events occurred, I wasn't disappointed. I finished the book yesterday but find myself still thinking about it at work this morning. I definitely recommend this book!

The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard is Erin McGraw's Best Book

If there is any justice in the world of books and their readers, The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard will bring Erin McGraw the attention her work has long deserved. This new novel displays many of the virtues her loyal readers have come to expect: the clear and pleasingly plainspoken prose, the characters full up with life and life's frustrations, the witty repartee, and the elegant shapings and symmetries of plot and structure that undergird it all. And this time, we have a story to beat the band, a semi-autobiographical account of a fiercely independent matriarch's lost years, imagined here with a precision of care and empathy seldom equalled in American fiction. Given the consistent excellence of McGraw's earlier books -- among them The Good Life, The Baby Tree, and Bodies at Sea -- it is saying quite a lot to say that The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard is Erin McGraw's best book. But it's true: The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard is Erin McGraw's best book.

a seamless blend of fact and fiction

In 1901 Erin McCraw's paternal grandmother fled a hard life on the Kansas prairie to pursue her Hollywood dreams. The motion picture industry was just taking root in southern California and her grandmother's skills as a seamstress gave her entree to that glittering world. McGraw has taken this real family history and created a novel inspired by that amazing true story. In her novel the narrator, Nell, is much like McGraw's grandmother. They left their Kansas lives behind. At age 17 they abandoned two young baby girls. The past will always haunt us. We can turn the page but the story remains the same. McGraw delivers a shocking stroke of fictional revenge. It really happened to her own grandmother. McGraw weaves a brilliant tale of escape and redemption. Lots of sewing, too!