Hollywood Secrets and Pasts

Book Review of “Melting the Snow on Hester Street” by Daisy Waugh.

Its 1929 and movie director Max Beecham and his actress wife Eleanor hobnob with Charlie Chaplain, Greta Garbo, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, John Barrymore, Gloria Swanson and more. To them, Max and Eleanor are the happiest, most loving couple in Hollywood. However, the Beechams are even better actors than those on the silver screen. They haven’t been happy since they left their old lives behind in New York, together with their tiny daughter, Isha. While Max seems to have given up, Eleanor is still determined to find her, or at least find out what happened to her.

The glamorous aura of the movie industry during Hollywood’s “Golden Era” makes an excellent setting for this novel. With this, Waugh focuses her story on the Beechams, the people they really were (aka Matz and Elena Beekman) and the mystery behind their missing daughter. This brings the reader back to earlier in the century and the other side of the country – to New York in 1911. It was there, in the slums teeming with immigrants that hundreds worked in “sweat shops,” the same place and time of the deadly Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. From there, Waugh takes us to the financial disaster of “Black Tuesday” and the great Stock Market Crash of 1929.

Rather than depend on flashbacks, Waugh has Eleanor employing a private investigator in Reno, Nevada (also known as the divorce capital of America) to fill in the story about the past. When the owner of the agency dies, the new owner, his son Mathew, writes to her about it and casually invites her to meet with him, in order to help further the case. Mathew doesn’t know who he’s writing to, and only when Elena shows up does he recognize her as Eleanor Beecham. In this way, both the reader and the investigator slowly discover the truth, including why they changed their names and left their daughter behind. What’s left unsaid to Mathew is told to us through Eleanor’s private thoughts.

All this is a fascinating premise for a novel, with real-life events that change the lives of these fictional characters. This ready-made drama is heightened by their being placed in situations that force them to hide both their true feelings and their identities. This would be a strain on anyone, and is obviously contributing to their teetering marriage and the downturns to their careers. With so many opportunities for turmoil, after a slightly slow start, this novel quickly becomes a fast paced page-turner. Waugh also makes Max and Eleanor into characters that have far more depth than the typical tabloid personalities, making them sympathetic to the reader, using an elegant language style that mirrors the eras of the settings.

For such a story, one must know something about Hollywood. Despite her British origins, author Daisy Waugh is such an author. She learned about it first hand from her time as a screenwriter and journalist there. Drawing on this, Waugh obviously researched the era, and most of the historic information seems very accurate. The major events that form the borders of the story mix well together with the real actors of the time, the plot, and the events portrayed. What Waugh has achieved with this is a story with a timeless atmosphere, and that’s not easy to achieve. The only exception to this was an aside regarding one real-life character which refers to an event several decades in the future. It might have been preferable to leave that out, but on the other hand, without this remark some people might not get the historical reference.

However, keeping things culturally accurate by using experts rather than personal knowledge and experience has its drawbacks. That Max/Matz and Eleanor/Elena are Jewish immigrants is historically correct for both Triangle and Hollywood. Waugh’s injections of Yiddish (the language of Ashkenazi Jews) in the book also work well, because Matz and Elena are from Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, the uncorrected proof copy included many (MANY) errors having to do with Jewish culture and foods. Thankfully, according to the author, most of these were removed from the final hardcover publication. Still, it would be a good idea if Jewish readers wait for the paperback version, where all of those mistakes will be removed (you’re welcome, Daisy).

All told, this is a very interesting and well-written novel. The characters are likeable, and the time-frames and the settings are fascinating ones. Waugh’s style also fits the era perfectly and she brings complex situations into focus without ever confusing the reader, with a tiny twist that keeps the ending from being clichéd. The uncorrected proof copy I received doesn’t have the historical photographs at the end, but one can easily assume that the addition of those will draw readers even further into this story. For all of this, I can recommended this novel and give it a three and a half stars out of five.

“Melting the Snow on Hester Street” by Daisy Waugh, published by Harper Collins, March 2013 is available (via these affiliate links) from Amazon, Walmart (Kobo) US (eBooks and audiobooks), the website eBooks.com, The Book Depository (free worldwide delivery) and new or used from Alibris or Better World Books. I would like to thank the publishers for sending an uncorrected proof copy of this book for review. This is a version of my review that appeared on Curious Book Fans, Dooyoo (under my username TheChocolateLady) and {the now defunct} Yahoo! Contributor Network.