Allende’s fluidly written saga conveys her deep familiarity with the events she depicts, and her intent to illustrate their human impact in a moving way. The scope spans most of the lives of Victor Dalmau, a Republican army medic in 1936 Spain, and Roser Bruguera, a music student taken in by Victor’s family and, later, his brother Guillem’s lover and the mother of Guillem’s child. The story follows them over nearly sixty years, beginning with the tumult of the Spanish Civil War. Guillem is killed fighting against the Fascists, news that Victor can’t bear to tell Roser initially. After surviving separate and terrible circumstances that leave them refugees in France, where authorities treat them with contempt and worse, the two marry for practical reasons in order to join Pablo Neruda’s mission transporting over 2000 Spanish exiles to Chile aboard the S.S. Winnipeg . In Santiago, the Dalmaus find many Chileans sympathetic to the Spaniards, while others make them unwelcome. With a poetic ...
In this entry, set in 1909, Emily is in her thirties, a married mother of two and lecturer at the University of Chicago. Series regulars, like her friends Detective Whitbread and policeman “Fitz” Fitzgibbons, play major roles, as do the colorful personalities involved with the Selig Polyscope Company, a prominent American motion picture studio at the time. Emily gets drawn into their orbit after learning that her younger brother Alden, to her shock and dismay, is accused of shooting a man to death on the set. Almost as bad, in Emily’s eyes, is that he’d quietly left his job at the Tribune to pen scripts for “Colonel” Selig.
The plot rattles along nicely and is a fine introduction to the film industry’s little-known Windy City roots. While trying to teach her old-enough-to-know-better brother about responsibility and extricate him from a murder charge, Emily and her star-struck children get up close and personal (sometimes too much) with the “pantomimists,” their romantic predicaments, and the secrets they try to hide. The victim, Mr. Hyde, was a censor, and both Chicago’s mayor and Col. Selig seem to want to downplay the crime – the investigations may hold up production – which incenses Emily.
Fictional characters mingle with real-life silent film actors, and since many of the latter are no longer famous names, readers may not realize which is which until they read the helpful afterword. Along the way, Emily visits the sets of The Wizard of Oz, in its earliest surviving version, and two wildlife adventure flicks with real lions and leopards (animal lovers should be alerted about one distressing scene).
There’s a multitude of suspects and no obvious perpetrator; this mystery gets the job done. The only drawback is Emily's attitude. The film-industry setting means she’s out of her element (as the author’s afterword admits): as a progressive social reformer, she has zero appreciation for celluloid “fakery.” She’s occasionally rude to her friends and abrupt with family members, and her overall mood is grumpy. Hopefully by the next volume, her planned vacation to Woods Hole will have restored her good spirits.
Frances McNamara's Death at the Selig Studios is published by Allium Press of Chicago in May; thanks to the publisher for sending a copy at my request.
Here are my reviews of two earlier books in the series:
Death at Hull House, book one, set in 1893.
Death at Pullman, book two, set in 1894.
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