The bright lights of the theater district, the glamour and danger of 1950s New York, and the wild scene at the iconic Chelsea Hotel come together in a dazzling new novel about a twenty-year friendship that will irrevocably change two women's lives—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue. From the dramatic redbrick facade to the sweeping staircase dripping with art, the Chelsea Hotel has long been New York City's creative oasis for the many artists, writers, musicians, actors, filmmakers, and poets who have called it home—a scene playwright Hazel Riley and actress Maxine Mead are determined to use to their advantage. Yet they soon discover that the greatest obstacle to putting up a show on Broadway has nothing to do with their art, and everything to do with politics. A Red Scare is sweeping across America, and Senator Joseph McCarthy has started a witch hunt for communists, with those in the entertainment industry in the crosshairs. As the pressure builds to name names, it is more than Hazel and Maxine's Broadway dreams that may suffer as they grapple with the terrible consequences, but also their livelihood, their friendship, and even their freedom. Spanning from the 1940s to the 1960s, The Chelsea Girls deftly pulls back the curtain on the desperate political pressures of McCarthyism, the complicated bonds of female friendship, and the siren call of the uninhibited Chelsea Hotel.
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(3 Stars)
The Chelsea Girls by Fiona Davis is a historical fiction novel following two women, Hazel Ripley and Maxine Mead over the course of their friendship and their experiences from the second World War and the McCarthy era. Hazel is a careful young woman, notorious for being the understudy that never performs when she decides to join the USO tour so that she can finally get some experience on the stage. While on tour she meets Maxine Mead, the future starlet, and forms a friendship over difficult events that happen while stationed in Italy. After the war ends Hazel becomes a playwright and moves into the Chelsea Hotel where she and Maxine get caught up in the blacklisting of New York theatre professionals during the Red Scare.
I was so excited to receive an Advanced Copy of this book due to it’s content. There haven’t been many historical fiction novels that have discussed the McCarthy Era in their books and I was curious about how Fiona Davis would handle it within her book. Unfortunately, I didn’t like the characters so I struggled to connect with the story. In a book that centers so much around who you can or cannot trust, I typically find myself wanting to root for the main character. I struggled with the intentions of both of our main characters. I found them to be manipulative. They wanted to be friends with each other because of shared experience and what they could gain from that friendship. Neither character truly supported the other despite the book’s focus being on female friendship.
One facet of the book that I appreciated was the discussion of what it was like for artists during the McCarthy Era. I can’t imagine living with the idea that you could be named and blacklisted for the rest of your career for a side comment or having been reported by someone you had a disagreement with. It’s a time in our nation that was scary and I hope it never happens again. I liked that the book pointed out that it wasn’t just people who had communist leanings that were blacklisted, it was people who didn’t fall into the traditional roles expected of men and women at the time. The narrative pointed out that there were many people targeted for reasons other than communism but it never fully expanded on that thought. I wish they would have explored that side of the Red Scare rather than focusing on Hazel and Maxine because it felt like a better story to tell. The theatre world was well represented but I struggled to root for characters who were manipulative. The one character I was interested in learning more about was rarely shown.
Throughout the book there was one character who I felt, although necessary to the ending, was not necessary to the overall story. The romance in the book felt trivial and quick, and although I liked the character I didn’t see the point in pairing the two together other than to fill the “enemies to lovers” trope. At the end of the book I gained a clearer understanding of why the character was needed in the book but it didn’t change my opinion on the romance. They could have been friends just as easily.
The ending of the book deals with a lot of tragedy and I didn’t appreciate where some of the characters ended at the conclusion of the narrative. Many of the characters were not well developed enough to have the closure that I needed as I was reading the book. The book had a much darker tone than I expected when I picked it up and that may have been what affected my disinterest in the book.
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