Customer Reviews

The Sewing Circle: Hollywood's Greatest Secret: Female Stars Who Loved Other Women

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

The subject of famous Hollywood starlets who were, in fact, deep in the closet is certainly a fascinating one--imagine the harsh, paranoid life one would have to lead, hiding one's true feelings and lying to protect one's careers while still seeking love. And I'd really love to read a well-executed, thoughtful study of this subject.

This isn't it, kids.

Axel Madsen's "The Sewing Circle" is, at best, a sloppy book, with plenty of rumor & opinion presented as fact & more typos than I've ever seen in any other "professionally published" book. For crying out loud, they misspelled Greta Garbo's name--at the head of the chapter dealing with her childhood!

There are some interesting tidbits here--the speculation as to why Garbo ended her career when she did, the behind-the-scenes gays & lesbians who drove the creative engines of Hollywood, the sad, ultimately lonely endings that many of these women met--but the presentation is so haphazard that it's difficult to get anything useful out of it. And if every mention of Mercedes de Costa were deleted, this wouldn't be a book--it would be a pamphlet.

This book sorely needed an editor, a fact-checker, a proofreader...it needed help. Had such help arrived, this might have been an interesting, trashy read. As it stands, it's just trash--recycle it & move on.

When I first came across this book, I was very excited, because I am interested in all aspects of how the various entertainment media manipulate the world and present only a selected vision of what it's really like. I looked forward to reading a detailed account of life in Hollywood and how hard it was to deal with oppression and prejudice and have to live a secret life. Instead of an inspiring, enlightening read, I got a scatter-brained, typo-laden gossip column. I can't believe, as was stated in another review, that the typos were the fault of the printer. The amount of effort put into researching and writing this book is reflected in the quality of the copy editing.

It could have been worth my money. Oh well. I'm glad I bought it from the Quality Paperback Book Club and not at retail price.

I was actually amazed that this book got published! Aside from the massive number of typographical errors, it was meandering, constantly bringing up new names of stars with absolutely no context, dropping them, then mentioning them again 100 pages later. A poor book that manages to make an interesting subject boring.

I liked the book. It was trashy but really fun. It says on the back of the book that "Nobody wanted to know (about the lesbianism of these stars)", but I did.

Here is a book chock full of names, but there is little documentation other than a very extensive bibliography. As well, the writing is hard to follow because so many names are mentioned one loses track of who is being discussed. Instead of developing ideas to provide some substance, the writer jumps around. A reader may still persevere because the subject itself is of great interest. Much of the book centres on Greta Garbo as a closeted lesbian. Another book [A Walk with Garbo] written by a respected Hollywood historian, provides a very different view, and casts a shadow on the truth of much of 'The Sewing Circle'. Read it by all means, but with many grains of salt.

The subject is one of great interest, but the book is so poorly written it's annoying. The author cannot keep to the theme - often within a paragraph. The book is little more (if more!) than an "outing" of a lot of dead people who are no longer around to defend themselves. What might (and should) be a fascinating story will (hopefully!) one day be told by someone with more ability.

This is one of the most ridiculous and certainly dishonest books you will ever come across. The author offers no real solid proof to any of his claims that most of these women were lesbians, just a "rumor" seems to satisfy him as evidence. A truthful book on this subject is much needed, but this ain't it!! One that is heavily researched, I might add, and tries to confirm the information (amazingly, the author does not suggest any rumors on any particular stars are false!) I suspect about half of the women mentioned here were (this includes those who were really bisexual although the writer suggests that virtually all of them are hardcore dykes) and half of them weren't which is very bad odds for a nonfiction book.

This is one of those gossipy hollywood books claiming everyone is a homosexual. This book doesn't stay on topic long enough to tell a story!! Every other word is "Mercedes De Acosta"-- I think that the author of the book should have wrote a bio on her life, rather then a bio claiming to be about a bunch of people, when in reality the main part of the book is about Mercedes!

I question some of the author's claims. Many things he stated was not backed up by additional proof or facts, and I have yet to find these statements in other biographies I've read of some of these women he mentioned. He claims Betty Asher introduced Judy Garland to drugs and drink, which was wrong. Judy was already into drugs well before Asher was assigned her publicist. It was true Asher did encourage Garland to drink booze and possibly Saphhic love, but nothing has been solidly substantiated about that in other books, only speculations. He also claims Garland married the homosexual Minelli so she could continue her liasions with women on the side. With what women? Whom? The other Garland biographies state Judy did experiment, but it was not a consistent or permanent thing in her life. The author also claims Garland enjoyed watching two gay men go at it. WTF??!!! Where on earth did he get that information? Sounds like gossipy bragging from people desperate to have some connection with Garland. No other Garland biographer EVER brought up this predilection of Judy's, so I can't believe it is true. Who is his source?
In addition to the outrageous fabrications, there was sloppy editing and typos in this book. Basically this book is about Mercedes de Acosta with the other Hollywood Lesbians thrown in. De Acosta deserves a much better, more accurate biography. What might have been an interesting historical look at Hollywood's prominent lesbians turned into nothing but sensationalistic, tabloid trash.

I simply was not pleased with this work. This is an area of interest to me and I needed facts along with good source notes; like any good biography or history book would contain. Rather I received a rather disjointed cut and paste rambling bit of information that could have been gleaned from any third rate grocery store gossip rag.

We all make typographical errors. It is a pretty good bet that you will be able to find a couple of them in this short review. I, unlike the author though, am not trying to sell you a copy of this review nor am I asking you to pay for reading it...I am not a professional writer. If I were in that line of work, you can bet I would take greater care or at least hire a good publishing company to do it for me.

Not so here. I can overlook a few slips here and there, but the numbers here were distracting.

I also had to strongly agree with another reviewer there. If you are one of us, i.e. a queer girl, then this work is an absolute insult. This guy has absolutely no clue as to what he is writing about. He tries his best to grasp for a bit of sensationalism but misses the mark completely. I suppose a college frat boy might get off on this thing as it reads like that is probably the status of the author who wrote it.

What a great idea this book was! What a pity it was handled so very, very badly. I cannot even vaguely give this one anything above a one star review...something that is quite rare for me to do.

This was truly a pitiful reading experience.