The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard: A Novel (Hardcover)

by Erin McGraw (Author)
Key Phrases: cracker tin, Madame Annelle, Los Angeles, Grant Station (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Unfortunately for Nell Plat, the heroine of Erin McGraw's immersive fifth book (after The Good Life), she is a whiz with a needle, but a failure in the kitchen. While she makes a name for herself sewing dresses in early 20th-century Grant Station, Kans., her lack of kitchen prowess is crippling to her marriage, prompting her to leave her husband and two daughters for Hollywood, where with the help of a French grammar book, she becomes Madame Annelle, modiste to the fine ladies of Pasadena. She marries oilman George Curran, and has another daughter, Mary. Just as she realizes her dream, cutting fabric alongside an established and very esteemed seamstress, her past arrives on her doorstep in the form of her two grown daughters, flappers who call themselves Lisette and Aimée in an attempt at the sophistication they hope will land them in the movies. Nell claims them as her sisters, but the lie only delays the unraveling of her California dream. Inspired by her grandmother's story, McGraw captures the lonely rigor of life on the plains and the invigorating lure of reinvention. (Aug.)
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Review
Unfortunately for Nell Plat, the heroine of Erin McGraw's immersive fifth book (after The Good Life), she is a whiz with a needle, but a failure in the kitchen. While she makes a name for herself sewing dresses in early 20th-century Grant Station, Kans., her lack of kitchen prowess is crippling to her marriage, prompting her to leave her husband and two daughters for Hollywood, where with the help of a French grammar book, she becomes Madame Annelle, modiste to the fine ladies of Pasadena. She marries oilman George Curran, and has another daughter, Mary. Just as she realizes her dream, cutting fabric alongside an established and very esteemed seamstress, her past arrives on her doorstep in the form of her two grown daughters, flappers who call themselves Lisette and Aimée in an attempt at the sophistication they hope will land them in the movies. Nell claims them as her sisters, but the lie only delays the unraveling of her California dream. Inspired by her grandmother's story, McGraw captures the lonely rigor of life on the plains and the invigorating lure of reinvention. (Publishers Weekly ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (August 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618386289
• ISBN-13: 978-0618386284
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #635,738 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard is Erin McGraw's Best Book, August 17, 2008

By	Kyle Minor "reader" (Columbus, Ohio) - See all my reviews

If there is any justice in the world of books and their readers, The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard will bring Erin McGraw the attention her work has long deserved. This new novel displays many of the virtues her loyal readers have come to expect: the clear and pleasingly plainspoken prose, the characters full up with life and life's frustrations, the witty repartee, and the elegant shapings and symmetries of plot and structure that undergird it all. And this time, we have a story to beat the band, a semi-autobiographical account of a fiercely independent matriarch's lost years, imagined here with a precision of care and empathy seldom equalled in American fiction.

Given the consistent excellence of McGraw's earlier books -- among them The Good Life, The Baby Tree, and Bodies at Sea -- it is saying quite a lot to say that The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard is Erin McGraw's best book. But it's true: The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard is Erin McGraw's best book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable, February 9, 2009

By	Eclectic Booklover (New England) - See all my reviews

The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard was a great historical novel based on the life of the author's grandmother.

From the book...."I couldn't cook, but I could sew. It would have been better the other way around."

At the turn of the 20th century, Nell is just a young teenager when she marries a rancher, moves in with her in-laws and soon after has two little girls -all within a couple of years. Nell is depressed and unhappy with her life in Kansas, but she has no one to share her feelings with. She convinces her husband to let her have a sewing machine, so she can have a creative outlet.

She finds that she has real talent, and she begins to earn some money sewing beautiful dresses for wealthy women in the area. She quickly finds sewing is her passion, not cooking, cleaning, and mothering her daughters. She puts the money she earns from sewing dresses away, and dreams about a different and more exciting life.

Before long her mother-in-law begins to interfere, and her husband begins to criticize her mothering skills. Nell is infuriated when Jack also sells her sewing machine. So much so that she leaves her husband, young daughters, and the mother-in-law in Kansas and heads for California.

In California Nell begins a new life. She works as a shop girl and soon begins sewing again for wealthy clients, and then for the motion picture industry. Nell remarries and she neglects to tell her new husband about her past. She even has another child. Nell can run, but she cannot hide, soon her past catches up with her.

I enjoyed the character of Nell very much, and it was interesting reading about Hollywood in the early 20th century. I did have a bit of a problem with the ending as I think it seemed unrealistic given the time when this novel was to have taken place. I won't elaborate as I do not want to give away the ending. All in all it was still an enjoyable read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Literary Page-Turner, October 18, 2008

By	A Reader - See all my reviews

It's rare that a novel which is considered "literary" is also a page-turner, but The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard definitely fits this bill. I finished this novel in just a couple of days because the main character seems so real. McGraw makes you feel as if you stepped inside Nell Plat's skin as she makes her harrowing life choices. Who wouldn't want to leave a hardscrabble Kansas farm for the bright lights of Hollywood? Nell's efforts at reinvention are more riveting than Madonna's, but this is no easy fairy tale, and her every move comes back to haunt her--especially when her abandoned daughters arrive at her doorstep! My only wish is that Nell could have attended at least one Hollywood premier, and that we, as readers, could have seen her tailor the costumes of some of the stars of her day, like Clara Bow or Errol Flynn. I would have loved to have seen Nell's reaction to the reality behind all the glitter! But no matter--stitch for stitch, The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard is a wonderful examination of our Amerian urge for self-determination, even when that means you have to wing it a little . . .