#1491. Mercury Pictures Presents by Anthony Marra

This is one of those sweeping tales of a family’s tribulations over decades. Didn’t hurt that it is set (mostly) in the movie industry. Maria Laguna was born in Rome shortly before the outbreak of WWII. Father is a lawyer who is no fan of Il Duce. Once some subversive writing of his gets noticed by the secret police, he is imprisoned. Mom and Maria scrape by for a short time before emigrating to the US. Specifically, LA where Maria manages to become work her way up to become an associate producer for a 2^nd tier studio. Her mom isn’t a fan of her chosen vocation. The studio boss must testify in front on Congress. Her Asian boyfriend/actor can’t break through the stereotypes. And Maria must suffer the indignities of the studio system that is known for its misogyny, discrimination, type casting, its underworld connections and every other stereotype we’ve associated with LaLa Land.

I knew going in that this was a bit out of our typical story matter. Most of that description comes from the jacket blurb. Can’t remember who recommended this to me, but I reserved the book from our library. Pretty hefty volume at over 400 pages. The author has won numerous book awards (that I’d never heard of) and his vocabulary is through the roof. Way way way above my pay grade. 

I managed to get through about 75 pages at a tortoise pace that allowed me to check a dictionary almost every page. Some words I could figure out the meaning based on the context of the sentence/paragraph. Most I couldn’t. Only way I could’ve gone further was if I’d had the book on my Kindle so I could quickly determine a word’s meaning. As this is new (2022) and a hard copy, I just gave up. I’m sure this is a wonderfully ‘epic’ story with legions of fans that could end up multiple 'best of 2022' lists or be green lit as one of the 10+ episode shows that populate Netflix/Hulu/etc. Glowing reviews are all over the Internet.   

It’s just not my cup of tea.

ECD