Stars Over Sunset Boulevard
Susan Meissner, 2016
Penguin
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780451475992
Summary
Two women working in Hollywood during its Golden Age discover the joy and heartbreak of true friendship.
Los Angeles, Present Day. When an iconic hat worn by Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind ends up in Christine McAllister’s vintage clothing boutique by mistake, her efforts to return it to its owner take her on a journey more enchanting than any classic movie…
Los Angeles, 1938. Violet Mayfield sets out to reinvent herself in Hollywood after her dream of becoming a wife and mother falls apart, and lands a job on the film-set of Gone With the Wind.
There, she meets enigmatic Audrey Duvall, a once-rising film star who is now a fellow secretary. Audrey’s zest for life and their adventures together among Hollywood’s glitterati enthrall Violet...until each woman’s deepest desires collide.
What Audrey and Violet are willing to risk, for themselves and for each other, to ensure their own happy endings will shape their friendship, and their lives, far into the future. (From the publishers.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 9, 1961
• Where—San Diego, California, USA
• Education—Point Loma Nazarene University
• Currently—lives in San Diego, California
Susan Meissner is an American writer born and raised in San Diego, California. She began her literary career at the age of eight and since then has published more than a dozen novels (though that part came a bit later in her life).
Early years and career
Susan attended Point Loma Nazarene University, married a U.S. Air Force man, raised four children, and spent five years overseas and several more in Minnesota. Those were the years she put her novel-writing itch on hold. In 1995, however, she took a part-time reporting job at her county newspaper, became a columnist three years later, and eventually editor of a local weekly paper. One of the things she is most proud of that her paper was named the Best Weekly Paper in Minnesota in 2002.
That was the same year Susan's latent novel-writing itch resurfaced, and she began working on her first novel, Why the Sky is Blue. In a little more than a year, the book was written, published, and in the bookstores. She's been noveling ever since—with a string of 12 books under her name. Historical Fiction is one of her favorite genres.
Booklist placed A Fall of Marigolds on its "Top Ten" list of women's fiction for 2014. In 2008, Publishers Weekly named The Shape of Mercy as one of the year's 100 Best Novels.
Personal
Susan lives with her husband and four children in San Diego where her husband is a pastor and Air Force Reserves chaplain. She teaches in writing workshops. In addition to writing books, she enjoys spending time with her family, making and listening to music, reading, and traveling. (Based on the author's website.)
Books
2016 - Stars Over Sunset Boulevard
2015 - Secrets of a Charmed Life
2014 - A Fall of Marigolds
2013 - The Girl in the Glass
2011 - A Sound Among the Trees
2010 - Lady in Waiting
2009 - White Picket Fences
2008 - The Shape of Mercy
2008 - Blue Heart Blessed
2006 - A Seahorse in the Thames
2006 - In All Deep Places
2005 - The Remedy for Regret
2003 - Why the Sky is Blue
Book Reviews
Meissner spins an entertaining, touching story of two friends who meet on the buzzing set of one of the most famous movies in history and whose dreams, hopes, and ambitions will be forever entwined. A lovely, well-crafted story that peeks at a fascinating moment in cinematic history and examines the power and vulnerability of sincere friendship.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Stars Over Sunset Boulevard:
1. Consider the two protagonists, Violet and Audrey. How are they different (or similar?) in their personalities, their dreams, and in the way each reacts to life's events? Did you admire or sympathize with one over the other? Did your attitudes toward either change by the novel's end?
2. What secrets was each woman hiding...and why?
3. What did you learn about the behind-the-scenes filming of Gone With the Wind? Did you know, for instance, that Vivienne Leigh was cast only after filming had begun?
4. Are there parallels between what happens in the film...and what happens in the novel? Consider, for example, destroying the draperies to make a dress—and the way Violet uses that analogy to justify her own choices.
5. Consider this quote: "Unhappiness has an insatiable appetite. It does not care what it might have to kill to feed its cravings.” What does that mean? If you were in either woman's shoes, how much would you be willing to sacrifice to attain your lifelong dreams?
6. Much of the story is taken up with the idea of beauty and desire. Locate and discuss passages in the book that relate to those concepts. For instance...
Beauty is all about perception, Vi. Your own perception is right up there with everyone else's. True...or not? Is our concept of beauty truly subjective? How much of our own lives, as well as the lives in this story, is driven by the attainment of beauty?
Don't ever sleep with a man to get what you want, because you wont' get it. He will, but you won't." Does that maxim hold true today?
7. Was the ending a suprise or predictable?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution.)