Not remotely a womb-to-tomb story about Maria, a woman emigre from Italy at a young age, now grown, working at Mercury Pictures—this story I would say actually drives to the heart of the entire cast of characters. Maria, certainly most predominate for several reasons. A nexus point, or confluence, rather than Mercury Pictures itself. From her axis, we delve into other immigrant stories and through them, touch on some uncomfortable truths about America and the film industry itself. As it functions, as it malfunctions, and what purpose and responsibility it ought to have.

The prose work is stand-out work. It is a chameleon that changes its stripes for the entire cast, as the story often digresses into movie-like vignettes that bleed the characters on the page in short order. We return to the “present”, usually around 1942, and pick up a semblance of a plot, but not the stand-out quality of the fiction by any means. I had no idea where this was going any of the time pretty much and was loving every second. It’s about the people and their stories. But it is also about the way their story is told. The prose is absolutely evocative of cinema at the time and wholly, in a meta way, expressly uninterested in verisimilitude, but in telling a Hollywood story that has been coopted to portray the immigrant story in a way that feels ageless, empathetic, and more real than Real.

Everything is buttoned up perfectly. There is the right amount of specificity to make you care about absolutely everything and everyone and even go into some minutia of movie magic, and politics, and interrogate the role of propaganda. There aren’t any easy answers. It’s often quotable because the characters are larger-than-life. Stories untold are told so well they spring off the page. And all the while with such control you never really know what the plot is until the knots get tied up. It doesn’t tell you to want to think of what to feel. It is just really great storytelling. I absolutely hope it gets nominated for awards because it is an award book.