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35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating subject, sloppy book, June 20, 2000
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.
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by Boze Hadleigh
by Diana McLellan
by Axel Madsen
by James Robert Parish
