A Touch of Stardust

Clark Gable and Carole Lombard's passionate romance, fragile Vivien Leigh, and complicated and creative Margaret Mitchell come to life in this captivating novel set during the filming of Gone with the Wind. Alcott (The Dressmaker; The Daring Ladies of Lowell) knows how to write historical fiction, and she has an almost embarrassingly extensive wealth of subject matter here: the glamour, the backbiting, the gossip fed by columnists such as Louella Parsons, and daily crises on the set owing to controlling producer David O. Selznick. Alcott doesn't neglect the uglier side of this period: Gable is recruited by the film's African American cast members to protest the segregated bathrooms on the set (which he did by threatening to quit if it wasn't changed); anti-Semitism is rampant, and the protagonist, Julie Crawford from Fort Crawford, IN, endures blatant sexism in her quest to become a screenwriter. Her romance with handsome Jewish assistant producer Andy Weinstein, who is concerned about his relatives' safety in Europe, brings impending World War II into the picture.