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Join eighteen-year-old Erica as she navigates the Greek island of Hydra and the lives of the real-life Australian writers Charmian Clift and George Johnston, the young, charismatic poet Leonard Cohen, and his beautiful, troubled muse, Marianne. Roiling with the heat of a Grecian summer, Polly Samson’s A Theater for Dreamers is a spellbinding tour-de-force about an unraveling utopia where everything is tested—the nature of art, relationships, and Erica’s own innocence.
Welcome to Read This Book, the newsletter where I recommend one book for your TBR that I think you’re going to love! Genre fiction is my wheelhouse, and about 90% of my personal TBR, so if if you’re looking for recommendations in horror, fantasy, or romance, I’ve got you covered!
When I love a piece of media, I can get a bit… obsessed. I want to know everything about it. Is there lore I can consume? A sequel I can preorder? Behind the scenes footage I can our into my eyeballs? I want it. This is one of the reasons – aside from the fact that almost a decade of academic analysis is a hard habit to break – that I love critical texts and supplemental books that allow me re-visit and get a new perspective on books or films that I love. This week’s title is a piece of non-fiction tangentially related to one of my favorite films of all time: Creature from the Black Lagoon.
The Lady from the Black Lagoon by Mallory O’Meara
Chances are that if you follow any book related social media you heard about The Lady from the Black Lagoon when it was published back in 2019. Mallory O’Meara’s biography of monster creator and artist Milicent Patrick shines a light on a forgotten figure in Hollywood history, and is also part memoir and part scathing critique of the ways in which men have done their best to oppress talented women in art and film industries for decades.
The star monster of Creature from the Black Lagoon, the much beloved Gill Man, was the last of Universal Studios classic monsters to make his on-screen debut. These days, his appearance is iconic but the woman responsible for his creation is largely unknown. Or she was, until Mallory O’Meara began researching what would become The Lady from the Black Lagoon. And the more O’Meara shares with her readers about Patrick’s life – as one of the first female animators at Disney and a creator in an industry that was, and a genre that still is, largely dominated by men – the more you realize what an incredible life she led.
And O’Meara’s recounting of her research journey is as fascinating as it is entertaining. Her footnotes frequently had me laughing out loud, which is what you want from footnotes if you can possibly get it. So whether you’re a horror fan, a fan of old Hollywood History, a devotee of amazing women, or all three, The Lady from the Black Lagoon should definitely be on your TBR!
Happy Reading!
Jessica