Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures

Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures (2012) by Emma Straub. In 1920, Elsa Emerson, the youngest and blondest of three sisters, is born in idyllic Door County, Wisconsin. Her parents own a playhouse, and she grows up knowing that she is fated to be an actress. While still in her teens, she marries a man with similar ambitions, and they move together to California. After an interval during which she bears two children, Elsa is discovered by motion-picture producer Irving Green, who falls in love with her and makes her a star. The story of her career in the movies is the fictional subject of this book, although the book seems more concerned with her domestic situation than with her career. She makes disappointingly few films, and even though she wins an Oscar for one of her performances, her career as a motion picture actress seems disappointingly truncated. Still, this is an enjoyable novel, full of heartbreak and triumph, with an (almost) happy ending. Grade: B+