What do you think of when someone says 1925 and Chicago? Prohibition, bootleg booze, gangsters and jazz, right. Okay, we have the base of this book. Now think about film students and scholarly research. What do you get? Nothing, am I right. This is the upper floors of this book. So, how do they get together?
In 1925, Honoree Delcour works as a chorus girl in a Black-and-tan club in Chicago. She has plans to go straight to the top. She wants to act in movies. She wants to headline in the jazz clubs world wide. She wants to own her own house and be independent. She has big dreams for a black girl in a segregated world.
In 2015, Honoree is in a nursing home. Film student Sawyer Hayes visits her, because she knew a filmmaker called Oscar Micheaux. He has discovered one reel of an old movie that he hopes is a lost Micheaux film. Oscar made movies for Black audiences, so his movies weren't kept in the Hollywood film vaults like other movie makers. Sawyer need Honoree to verify one of the performers in the film is her. Honoree isn't going to tell her story without Sawyer telling her his.
There are surprises in this book. There is a great deal of true history here also. Honoree herself is fictional but many of the locations and events are real. It's this mix of reality and fiction that makes this a very good read. It is a rip roaring good story. I highly recommend it.
In 1925, Honoree Delcour works as a chorus girl in a Black-and-tan club in Chicago. She has plans to go straight to the top. She wants to act in movies. She wants to headline in the jazz clubs world wide. She wants to own her own house and be independent. She has big dreams for a black girl in a segregated world.
In 2015, Honoree is in a nursing home. Film student Sawyer Hayes visits her, because she knew a filmmaker called Oscar Micheaux. He has discovered one reel of an old movie that he hopes is a lost Micheaux film. Oscar made movies for Black audiences, so his movies weren't kept in the Hollywood film vaults like other movie makers. Sawyer need Honoree to verify one of the performers in the film is her. Honoree isn't going to tell her story without Sawyer telling her his.
There are surprises in this book. There is a great deal of true history here also. Honoree herself is fictional but many of the locations and events are real. It's this mix of reality and fiction that makes this a very good read. It is a rip roaring good story. I highly recommend it.