Big Red: A Novel Starring Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles

When “Love Goddess” Rita Hayworth sashays away from her studio handlers and into the arms of “Boy Wonder” Orson Welles, they send in a spy in the guise of Hayworth’s private secretary. Rusty Redburn has impeccable qualifications: two years’ college at Kalamazoo, nuanced appreciation for Welles’s work, straightforward appreciation for Hayworth’s physicality, and no intention of actually ratting on her idols. Feeding the studio just enough “secrets” to keep her place by the sides of “Orsie” and “Big Red,” Rusty is far less stingy with the listener, regaling listeners with their life stories and her assessment of their inimitable abilities. Charyn (The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson), whose career spans 50 years and as many publications, delivers a new fictionalization of the stars of American history and a moment in time when they shone brightest. Narrator Natalie Duke perfectly inhabits wry, self-assured Rusty, and though her Welles impersonation is lacking, that only proves his inimitability.