Stars Over Sunset Boulevard (30 page)

Spoiler alert—A Conversation with Susan Meissner and the Questions for Discussion that follow tell more about what happens in the book than you might want to know until you read it.

Q. What inspired you to use Scarlett's hat from
Gone With the Wind
to tell a story about female friendship?

A. I've long been a fan of
Gone With the Wind
. I've read the book only once, but I'd probably seen the movie a dozen or more times before I decided to write
Stars over Sunset Boulevard
. Margaret Mitchell's legendary novel is not often described as being about friendship, but the more I've watched the film, the more I've seen how incredibly deep and complex Scarlett O'Hara and Melanie Hamilton's relationship is. I wanted to explore the layers of their friendship as depicted in the movie, and I especially wanted to study how these two literary characters at first glance seem to be polar opposites but are actually both fiercely
loyal and unafraid of making hard choices to protect what and whom they love. Scarlett's curtain-dress hat is to me emblematic of what dire circumstances can lead someone to do when what she loves most is in danger of being ripped out of her hands. I knew I could use Scarlett and Melanie's fictional friendship as a template for telling a story about two studio secretaries who, like Scarlett and Melanie, are not as different from each other as we might first think, especially when their separate longings collide.

Q. By the end of the novel, I was deeply moved by all that Violet and Audrey have come to mean to each other. I wanted to immediately contact all my best friends in person to tell them how grateful I am for their presence in my life. Is the novel, in part, your tribute to your own friends?

A. It is first a tribute to friendship itself. It is the most remarkable of human relationships because it is completely voluntary. Violet muses late in the book on this very thought: that we are bound by blood and vows to other deeply close relationships, but we get to choose to keep loving our friends, day after day. Or to stop loving them. There is no civil code that demands we stay friends—no pledge is given; no papers are signed; no vows are spoken. And yet most of us have friends whom we love as deeply as those people we are legally and morally bound to. I know I have friends like that. I love writing novels about relationships, and there is no relationship quite like friendship.

Q. What do you find especially appealing about Hollywood during its golden age, and the films that were made then?

A. There was a magical quality about Hollywood in its golden years. It was a dream factory in the 1930s and '40s, a place that produced in fantasy what people imagined life could be like as they stoically moved on from the horrors of the First World War and then the demoralizing years of the Depression. The golden age of Hollywood was a chance to indulge again in beauty and wonderment after death and then deprivation. This era also interests me because Hollywood's golden years ended so suddenly and without any warning. After World War Two, most in Hollywood thought they could just pick up where they left off before the war started. But the advent of television just a few years later would change everything. The beginning of World War Two was actually the beginning of the end of the golden age and no one really saw it coming.

Q. Where did you find such detailed information about the making of
Gone With the Wind
? Did anything you discovered particularly surprise you?

A. Every day that I spent in research I found new details that amazed me. The filming began in January 1939 and the movie premiered just eleven months later; that detail floors me. The fact that the script kept changing up until the last few weeks of shooting, that five thousand separate wardrobe pieces were made, that it is still the most iconic film ever produced, are just a few of the myriad fascinating
particulars about
Gone With the Wind
. There were a number of little things I learned about the film that didn't make it into my novel, such as Scarlett's first wedding night scene, which was edited out, in which she makes Charles Hamilton sleep in a chair across the room, and the scene in which Ashley's father, John Wilkes, dies in her arms. The book that was most helpful to me was Steve Wilson's
The Making of Gone With the Wind.
It is a beautifully composed book with wonderful photos and text, published by the University of Texas at Austin. The university's Harry Ransom Center owns much of David O. Selznick's studio archives and a number of
Gone With the Wind
costume pieces, including the curtain dress and its hat.

Q. Where did the idea to include the nightingale spring from? Is it true that one hundred nightingales were shipped to California from England in 1887, as Violet says late in the book?

A. Hans Christian Anderson's story “The Nightingale” was a favorite of mine as a child, so I've wanted for some time to incorporate that fable into the story threads of a novel. I love the idea from the story that the magnificent mechanical bird can satisfy the emperor for only a limited time. In the end, it is the plain brown nightingale that the emperor loves most and longest, and that bird is always meant to be free.

It's quite possible that a hundred nightingales did make it to California in 1887. I found an answer to a query in a 1902 edition of the avian-themed periodical
The Condor
that states a bill of lading existed for one hundred
nightingales shipped out of Southampton, England, and bound for New York. The nightingales were reputedly ordered by a man who wanted them for a gentleman's park in Santa Barbara. Did those birds arrive in California? Were they released? Did they survive and multiply? I don't know. But I had the wonderful opportunity as a novelist to imagine in the pages of
Stars over Sunset Boulevard
that they did.

Q. What do you hope readers will take away from the novel and remember long after they've finished reading?

A. I hope the theme that will resonate most is that love and fear can sometimes feel the same, but each will lead a person to take different actions. When a decision has to be made, fear usually motivates me to choose what is best for me, whereas love motivates me to choose what is best for another person. Fear urges me to hang on, white-knuckled, to what is mine, while love can actually lead me to let go. My hoped-for takeaway is the notion that when you hold something you love tightly to your chest for fear of losing it, you actually risk crushing it against you.

Q. Readers are often deeply moved by your stories, and quote liberally from them. Is there something unique about your writing process that results in this emotional reaction to your work?

A. I want my readers to remember a book of mine after they've turned the last page, partly so they will want to
read more from me, but also because I want them to feel that reading it was well worth their time. I guess I want a book that I write to be more than entertainment that is enjoyable for the moment but forgettable as the months go by. I don't make a conscious effort to craft quotable prose when I write, but I do endeavor to pose questions and suggest insights that speak across the pages into a reader's life. For me, that translates into a good reason for having read the book. I always remember a book more fully and longer if I've been so emotionally tugged that I find myself highlighting phrases I don't want to forget. And I usually can't wait for that author's next book! Khaled Hosseini's books are always like that for me.

Q. Is this your first novel set in your home state of California? Did that proximity affect your writing?

A. I set two of my older titles in my hometown of San Diego, but this was the first one set in Los Angeles against the glamorous backdrop of Old Hollywood. The geographical proximity made physical research far easier than with my previous book,
Secrets of a Charmed Life
, which was set in England. But as is the case with all historical settings, time has marched on. You can't revisit former years; you can only look at the relics and archives that remain from them. When I visited the Culver Studios, which seventy years ago was the site of Selznick International, I entered the iconic Thomas Ince mansion, stood inside what was David Selznick's office, and peeked at the same sound stages where many
Gone With the Wind
scenes were
filmed. But the famed back lot is long gone, as are all the sets, the costumes, and almost everyone who worked on the film. Even so, being able to plant my feet in the very spot where history was made always has an invigorating effect on me. I can more easily imagine what an event was like if I am standing in the place where it happened, closing my eyes, and picturing it all in my head.

Q. A section of
Stars over Sunset Boulevard
is set during World War Two. Can you tell us more about how people on the “home front” experienced the war, especially in California?

A. From what I can gather, the most difficult aspect of World War Two for Californians, especially for those living in larger coastal cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego, was the fear of attack by Japanese forces from across the Pacific. For Japanese-Americans living in California, life was incredibly hard. Most, including children and second-generation transplants who didn't speak a word of Japanese, were forced off their properties and housed in internment camps for the duration of the war. Interestingly enough, I've read that within days of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt commissioned Hollywood to strengthen public awareness and morale, and to support the war effort by continuing to make motion pictures. Hollywood made significant movie-making advances during the years of the war despite limitations related to restrictions and shortages, and pretty much perfected the genre of combat films during that time. Plus, Hollywood worked with the war department
and the army to distribute its films, free of charge, to soldiers in combat areas. The movies were delivered by boat, jeep, parachute, and any other mode of transportation available.

Q. You're a voracious reader. Have you read anything lately that you particularly recommend?

A. I've always got a towering stack of books on my bedside table. Some of my most recent favorites have been
Girl on a Train
by Paula Hawkins,
The Nightingale
by Kristin Hannah,
All the Light We Cannot See
by Anthony Doerr, and
The Goldfinch
by Donna Tartt. All of these books were superbly written, but none is what I would call a light read. The books I enjoy the most are usually fairly infused with angst and moral dilemmas. It's not that I can't appreciate a lighter read, but those books typically aren't the ones I remember. The books that stay with me are the ones in which ordinary, flawed but likable people have been thrust into extraordinary circumstances that have truly taken them to the mat. Even in
Where'd You Go, Bernadette
, a hilarious read that I loved, there is a complex, deep story underneath the witty writing and the laughs. As I write this, I am eagerly awaiting Kate Morton's newest,
The Lake House
, and Geraldine Brooks's
The Secret Chord.

Q. Can you give us a hint about your next novel?

A. The nutshell of the story I am writing next is this: Three war brides on their way to the United States in 1946—a British telephone operator who fears the open water, a French
Resistance fighter's daughter emotionally scarred by the loss of her family at the hands of the Nazis, and a German ballet dancer who feels despised by everyone she meets—form unlikely bonds of friendship on the famed HMS
Queen Mary
as it transports 1,500 American GI brides and their children from Southampton to New York. The dovetailed contemporary story is about a woman with extrasensory gifts she has never felt comfortable having who boards the supposedly haunted
Queen Mary
with a task she hesitantly undertakes as a favor to an old flame—now a widower—and his young daughter. I live just two hours away from the
Queen Mary
, and I can tell you that stepping onto her deck is like walking into a time machine. This historic and majestic Cunard ship was first a luxury ocean liner, then a WWII troop carrier and bearer of GI war brides to America, and she is now a floating hotel moored in Long Beach, California. Many people insist she is haunted, but I plan to consider not which ghosts allegedly haunt which deck, but rather what stays behind in a place that has seen so much human history. Think of all those who walked the
Queen Mary
's decks: kings and queens, prime ministers and presidents, millionaires, immigrants, soldiers, prisoners of war, vacationers, happy newlyweds, gray-haired spinsters, and innocent children. The
Queen Mary
is a character unto herself, and if there are echoes of the past aboard her, I want to consider what those echoes might mean. When the story of my three young war brides intersects with my reluctant current-day researcher, I will explore thematically how sometimes a person must bravely cross the unknown to begin a new life when the old one is gone. I can't wait to start writing it.

1. What aspect of the novel had the strongest emotional impact on you?

2. Who did you like more—Violet or Audrey? Which woman is most like you?

3. Who is your best friend? Did this person ever save your life? What do you think is the most remarkable quality about friendship?

4. The novel suggests that Melanie in
Gone With the Wind
is as capable of deceit as Scarlett is, if deceit is required to get what she wants. Do you agree? How do Violet and Audrey compare to Scarlett and Melanie?

5. Have you ever stolen your friend's significant other?

6. Are you keeping a secret from your partner and/or friend because the truth would reflect poorly on you?

7. In Chapter Twenty-nine, Violet tells herself that “Sometimes a person had to do something drastic, like rip apart beautiful curtains to make a dress and hat, to bring about the better good.” How does Violet use this analogy to rationalize her actions?

8. How would the characters' lives have been different if Violet had told Lainey the truth about her mother when she first began to ask?

9. It has been said that there are only two basic emotions, love and fear, and that all the other emotions are variations of these. Do you agree? How are fear and love the same? How are they different?

10. Are you a fan of
Gone With the Wind
—the book and the film? Tell us how you felt and what you thought when you first read the book or saw the movie. Has your opinion changed over time?

11. Have you heard stories or read depictions about what life was like in the U.S. during World War Two? How do they compare to Violet's experiences?

12. What do the nightingales represent in the novel? Have you ever looked for something beautiful that might not
exist?