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A Touch of Stardust
Kate Alcott
2015, 296 pages
Fiction
It’s 1938, and college-graduate Julie has just landed her first important job in Hollywood – not as a screenwriter, but as an assistant to Carole Lombard, who she first meets on the set of Gone with the Wind. Lombard shows Julie the not-so-glamorous side of Hollywood and the movie-making business, and the real people behind the headlines. (Alcott sprinkles real-life anecdotes from the making of Gone with the Wind and passages from the book throughout her novel, which adds to the realism of the setting.)
However, even as Julie and Carole’s friendship develops, the conclusion of filming forces Julie to make tough choices about where she wants to go and who she wants to be.
A Touch of Stardust covers Julie’s involvement with Hollywood through the frame of the making of Gone with the Wind, which is problematic. The book is not so much a coming-of-age story as an homage to Gone with the Wind, which displaces Julie’s story and character to the background. As a reader, it’s hard to like or dislike Julie, as most of her life revolves around the larger-than-life secondary characters that are the true focus of A Touch of Stardust. The story would have been more focused and believable if Alcott had written the novel from Carole Lombard’s point of view. Her depiction is excellent as her vivid, lively personality dominates any scene she is in. Ultimately, this was not a memorable book, but it was an enjoyable read. I would recommend this as a summer beach read if you are looking for something light and quick.
