Genre Fiction
![Adrienne Sharp - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B001H9TT50.jpg)
The Magnificent Esme Wells: A Novel
From the nationally bestselling author of The True Memoirs of Little K, a deeply felt and historically detailed novel of family, loss, and love, told by an irrepressible young girl-the daughter of a two-bit gangster and a movie showgirl-growing up in golden-age Hollywood and Las Vegas in its early days.
Esme Silver has always taken care of her charming ne'er-do-well father, Ike Silver, a small-time crook with dreams of making it big with Bugsy Siegel. Devoted to her daddy, Esme is often his "date" at the racetrack, where she amiably fetches the hot dogs while keeping an eye to the ground for any cast-off tickets that may be winners.
In awe of her mother, Dina Wells, Esme is more than happy to be the foil who gets the beautiful Dina into meetings and screen tests with some of Hollywood's greats. When Ike gets an opportunity to move to Vegas-and, in what could at last be his big break, to help the man she knows as "Benny" open the Flamingo Hotel-life takes an unexpected turn for Esme. A stunner like her mother, the young girl catches the attention of Nate Stein, one of the Strip's most powerful men.
Narrated by the twenty-year-old Esme, The Magnificent Esme Wells moves between pre–WWII Hollywood and postwar Las Vegas-a golden age when Jewish gangsters and movie moguls were often indistinguishable in looks and behavior. Esme's voice-sharp, observant, and with a quiet, mordant wit-chronicles the rise and fall and further fall of her complicated parents, as well as her own painful reckoning with love and life. A coming-of-age story with a tinge of noir, and a tale that illuminates the promise and perils of the American dream and its dreamers, The Magnificent Esme Wells is immersive, moving, and compelling.
Esme Silver has always taken care of her charming ne'er-do-well father, Ike Silver, a small-time crook with dreams of making it big with Bugsy Siegel. Devoted to her daddy, Esme is often his "date" at the racetrack, where she amiably fetches the hot dogs while keeping an eye to the ground for any cast-off tickets that may be winners.
In awe of her mother, Dina Wells, Esme is more than happy to be the foil who gets the beautiful Dina into meetings and screen tests with some of Hollywood's greats. When Ike gets an opportunity to move to Vegas-and, in what could at last be his big break, to help the man she knows as "Benny" open the Flamingo Hotel-life takes an unexpected turn for Esme. A stunner like her mother, the young girl catches the attention of Nate Stein, one of the Strip's most powerful men.
Narrated by the twenty-year-old Esme, The Magnificent Esme Wells moves between pre–WWII Hollywood and postwar Las Vegas-a golden age when Jewish gangsters and movie moguls were often indistinguishable in looks and behavior. Esme's voice-sharp, observant, and with a quiet, mordant wit-chronicles the rise and fall and further fall of her complicated parents, as well as her own painful reckoning with love and life. A coming-of-age story with a tinge of noir, and a tale that illuminates the promise and perils of the American dream and its dreamers, The Magnificent Esme Wells is immersive, moving, and compelling.
Editorial Reviews
"Sharp's novel, like Jennifer Egan's Manhattan Beach (2017), is propulsive and profound." - Booklist (starred review)
"Consider it your good luck to join Esme Wells as she comes of age with the glamour, gangsters, and big dreams of Hollywood and Las Vegas of the 30s and 40s. Like its narrator, this novel is magnificent." - Ann Hood, author of The Book That Matters Most and The Knitting Circle
"Adrienne Sharp sure can WRITE! And her newest novel, The Magnificent Esme Wells, does all the best things: it transports, amuses, delights and heartbreaks. What a gem of a book." - Jennifer Gilmore, New York Times bestselling author of Golden Country and The Mothers
"WWII-era LA and postwar Vegas come vibrantly alive in this detailed, noir portrait of a Paper Moon-style childhood." - People
"This glittering noirish tragedy, with its lushly imagined period landscape and subtle feminist trajectory, is both fun to read and sad to think about." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Esme's dramatic and irresistible story sparkles with psychological nuance, sumptuous detail, and vivid historical perceptions as Sharp tracks the high wattage success and violence of tough Jews building movie and casino empires while Hitler bloodied Europe. With real-life figures, mushroom clouds rising from desert test sites, and arresting insights into the power and vulnerability of a daring woman performer, Sharp's novel, like Jennifer Egan's Manhattan Beach (2017), is propulsive and profound." - Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)
"Adrienne Sharp brilliantly recreates the tawdry magic of twin dream machines, studio-era Hollywood and early Las Vegas, in this tale of . . . the scrappy, precocious Esme Wells, her go-for-broke parents, and the toll these dreams took on their dreamers." - Janet Fitch,
"Consider it your good luck to join Esme Wells as she comes of age with the glamour, gangsters, and big dreams of Hollywood and Las Vegas of the 30s and 40s. Like its narrator, this novel is magnificent." - Ann Hood, author of The Book That Matters Most and The Knitting Circle
"Adrienne Sharp sure can WRITE! And her newest novel, The Magnificent Esme Wells, does all the best things: it transports, amuses, delights and heartbreaks. What a gem of a book." - Jennifer Gilmore, New York Times bestselling author of Golden Country and The Mothers
"WWII-era LA and postwar Vegas come vibrantly alive in this detailed, noir portrait of a Paper Moon-style childhood." - People
"This glittering noirish tragedy, with its lushly imagined period landscape and subtle feminist trajectory, is both fun to read and sad to think about." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Esme's dramatic and irresistible story sparkles with psychological nuance, sumptuous detail, and vivid historical perceptions as Sharp tracks the high wattage success and violence of tough Jews building movie and casino empires while Hitler bloodied Europe. With real-life figures, mushroom clouds rising from desert test sites, and arresting insights into the power and vulnerability of a daring woman performer, Sharp's novel, like Jennifer Egan's Manhattan Beach (2017), is propulsive and profound." - Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)
"Adrienne Sharp brilliantly recreates the tawdry magic of twin dream machines, studio-era Hollywood and early Las Vegas, in this tale of . . . the scrappy, precocious Esme Wells, her go-for-broke parents, and the toll these dreams took on their dreamers." - Janet Fitch,
Readers Top Reviews
Ethel F.
This book set in 1939 in Hollywood and in the early 50's in Las Vegas, was an excellent story. Mobsters, would-be actresses and the coming of age of a little girl, Esme Wells. Her father, is a gambler in the shadow of Bugsy Seigel and her mother a wanna-be actress, a dancer in the chorus line of Busby Berkeley. With parents like that, how could you go wrong? This novel takes us to Hollywood and Las Vegas in another time, another age. At that time, it was Hollywood's Golden Age when she was little and in the 50's Vegas was just a spot in the desert, only an idea in the head of Seigel.. We see this novel through the eyes of Esme, who at the age of 20 had led a life far different from many little girls. With hardly any schooling, Esme had a different education. She accompanied her father to the racetrack, kept a record of his winnings and mostly of all that he lost. Wise beyond her years, her friends were those like Seigel and his peers. Well written, you see both Hollywood and Vegas as far different from the glitzy world of the Silver Screen and the beautiful girls on stage at hotels such as the Flamingo and more. Not so glamorous and a lot more dangerous. "The Magnificent Esme Wells" was a truly "magnificent," one that I would highly recommend.
Frank Donnelly
"Esme Wells" is a really good "coming of age" or Bildungsroman novel about a little girl growing up in a difficult environment in America. It is set California and Nevada between 1939 and the early 1950s. I enjoyed it very much. There is a certain "time capsule" element to the novel that I enjoyed, but may not suit the taste of every reader. The story is told from the point of view of the protagonist in a first person format. The story starts in California in 1939 and revolves around the fringes of the Hollywood Stars and various other Hollywood historical figures such as Louis B. Mayer and chorographer Busby Berkeley. Obviously not every reader is interested in reading about those figures. The story slowly morphs into a story about the early modern development of Las Vegas. Many figures of entertainment and mobsters are depicted. Although fiction, the novel makes use of a lot of real people and incidents. I found myself enthralled with the novel. I looked up the back stories on many of the names in this fine novel and really enjoyed the entire reading expereince. In the last two years or so I have read a few works of fiction and non fiction that revolve around Las Vegas. "In The Unlikely Event" is a good novel by Judy Blume that starts out in New Jersey in the early 1950s that ends up in early modern Las Vegas. "The Eyes of Darkness" is a 1981 novel by Dean Koontz set in a then contemporary Las Vegas that is not as dark as some of his other novels. "Northline" by Willy Vlautin is a modern American Noir novel set in Las Vegas and Reno; excellent but very dark. Finally "Unsinkable" is a non fiction memoir by Debbie Reynolds that describes, in part, her business venture in Las Vegas. I really liked every one of those works. I am a life long resident of Pennsylvania and have always been fascinated by the American West, Las Vegas, and Hollywood History. As such, I have found every one of these novels, as well as the memoir of Debbie Reynolds to be an very interesting and enjoyable collection of work that has formed a sort of pastiche about Las Vegas. (Ironically, the only time I was actually in Las Vegas was while driving. I arrived at rush hour, got caught in an amazing traffic / pedestrian whirlwind, and just kept going until I was out of the city! Don't tell anyone...) In summary I really liked this novel. This is the first novel by Adrienne Sharp that I have read. I always take a break between novels of an author. After a break, I will be on look out for another. Thank You...
