The Unforgettable Loretta Darling
Loretta Reynolds is a character who, on paper, should be irresistible – a plucky, moderately talented makeup artist with enough gumption to get herself from the eastern coast of England to the palm tree-lined streets of Hollywood in the glamorous 1950s. The narcissistic, amoral, barely educated narrator’s point of view, however, is so relentlessly focused on finding one man after another to open the doors to fame for her (or to punish for failing to do so), that the story of her life and career becomes sadly repetitive and thin. There’s plenty of name-dropping and gossip about the real and fictional stars she encounters, but her perspective is myopic in the extreme.
The rest of the characters in the novel are mere playing pieces for Loretta to move around for her own purposes, arranged into categories of leering sexual predators and credulous innocents, with little in-between. The sophistication and wit of the directors and writers of the time are nowhere in evidence, nor are the women (and men) who actively pushed back against the misogyny and conformity of the studio system. Instead, Loretta uses clichéd and crude methods to punish the predators and reward the saints she comes in contact with in her epic quest to… design a line of lipsticks. Labeling a title character as “unforgettable” is a risky move, and in this case, one that doesn’t really pay off.
