The Great Pretenders

Raised by her grandparents, who built Empire Pictures, Roxanne Granville grew up in luxury. Returning to Hollywood for her grandmother's funeral in 1953, she faces uncertainty. Her grandfather had divorced his wife of 40 years to marry a young actress and also had fired his best screenwriters for alleged Communist ties. Determined to forge a path outside Empire, Roxanne nevertheless relies on her connections and inheritance to begin her own agency. She sells scripts by blacklisted authors fronted by other writers, but her professional gambles are trivial compared with a romance with an African American journalist. His coverage of the Montgomery bus boycott gains national attention, but his family's fears for his safety because of his relationship with Roxanne prove prescient. Then the truth about her agency's writers come to light, and her career crumbles. Yet, changes in entertainment and society offer hope for the future. Kalpakian loads her pages with references to famous actors and films, then creates numerous characters and interwoven subplots, many dependent on unlikely coincidences. A reader's guide signals likely marketing to book groups.