Blonde Venus

(Paperback)

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Hollywood, were reminded, is after all a through-the-looking glass world, and Byrne writes authoritatively about its illusions and obscene, glittering excess Compelling Daily Mail

Both eye-poppingly fun and thought-provoking The Times

Madou is the most beautiful woman in the world.
Discovered in a Berlin cabaret in the roaring twenties, she is brought to the glamour of Los Angeles. She becomes a superstar of the silver screen and Hollywoods darling, but nothing perfect lasts forever.

The cost of beauty is always high, for those who have it and those who live in its shadow. The weight falls on her daughter to untangle the complicated truths of being ordinary beside an
extraordinary mother, a woman who has bent and broken and skewed her perception of reality, a woman adored by the world, but from whom her daughter longs to escape.

Evocative and deeply moving, Blonde Venus is based on Marlene Dietrichs glittering life, a dramatic novel set in Hollywoods golden age, that tells the story of mothers and daughters and of times war against beauty and the unbearable pain of a woman when beauty is the only game in town.

Previously published as Mirror, Mirror.

Reviews

Byrnes fictional life of a screen siren is thought-provoking as well as hugely entertaining . Byrnes Dietrich is called Madou. And she is every bit as glamorous, witty and highly sexed as her reputation suggests. both eye-poppingly fun and thought-provoking. The Times

Paula Byrne has also drawn on real events for this, a kind of fictionalised memoir of Maria Riva, the daughter of Marlene Dietrich. In Byrnes book the pair become Kater and Madou respectively, and while the latter is the most beautiful woman in the world, her child is self-loathing and fat. Daringly, Byrne also grants the mirror that is Madous confidante and companion a voice, and not just any voice, but that of Dietrichs friend, Noel Coward. It shouldnt work, but it does: Hollywood, were reminded, is after all a through-the-looking glass world, and Byrne writes authoritatively about its illusions and obscene, glittering excess. Compelling. Daily Mail

Author Bio

Paula Byrne was born in Birkenhead and has a PhD from the University of Liverpool, where she is a Research Fellow in English Literature. Her first book, Jane Austen and the Theatre, was shortlisted for the Theatre Book Prize. Her second book, Perdita: The Life of Mary Robinson , the tale of the scandalous star of the 18th-century stage, literature and high-society, was a Richard and Judy bookclub pick. Her most recent book is Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead. The story of Evelyn Waugh's friendship with the extraordinary aristocratic family who inspired Brideshead Revisited, it was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller. A regular contributor to the 'Times Literary Supplement', she lives in Warwickshire with her two young children and her husband, the critic and biographer Jonathan Bate.