Mabel and Me

a Novel About the Movies

Add to my list

by Jon Boorstin

Type

Novel

Subject

Others persons > Mack Sennett

Keywords

Mack Sennett, Mabel Normand

Publishing date

2014

Publisher

Angel City Press

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Hardcover • 308 pages
6 x 9 inches (15 x 23 cm)

ISBN

978-1-62640-016-0

User Ratings

(0 vote)

X

Average rating:

0	rating	= We can do without
0	rating	= Good book
0	rating	= Excellent book
0	rating	= Unique / a reference

Your rating: -

Book Presentation:
Mabel and Me is a novel about the Movies—a sharply observed, historically accurate, deliciously intimate story set in the earliest days of motion pictures. Beautifully told, this is a tale of Mack, his coming of age with the Movies, and his passionate, destructive, and ultimately liberating love for one of the very first movie stars, the sweetheart of slapstick—Mabel Normand. Theirs is the story of the birth of the modern movie age. It’s a story they lived together. Day in, day out. Until they didn’t.

Mabel Normand was the model for the modern woman: her brief life, from slapstick girl to box-office bonanza to drug addict to modern savvy star, embodied the evolution of the Movies. She was the Queen of Comedy, a flapper a decade before flappers, the first to have her name emblazoned in the title of a picture, the first director of Charlie Chaplin’s tramp—not to mention the person who convinced Mack Sennett to give Chaplin his first break, immediately recognizing his comic genius. Mabel was the first woman allowed to be both beautiful and funny, the model for the modern comedic star, and she was shockingly sexy at the time. Watching Mabel on screen was like “being slapped in the face with a perfumed glove.” Author Jon Boorstin portrays her love affairs—all fact-based, particularly her defining, explosive relationship with Mack Sennett—with humor, poignancy, and drama.

Mabel and Me takes us directly inside the world of the birth of the Movies, inside the world of Hollywood 1912. We become obsessed with motion pictures, in love with their mesmerizing power. Entertaining, heartfelt, and unexpected, Boorstin’s novel delivers us to the first moments of filmmaking and recreates the sense of all that was happening on film and behind the scenes for the very first time. Written in a voice that’s side by side with Hollywood’s premier female movie star, one that’s close to her, and from a perspective that’s often privy to what Normand is thinking—even when she starred with Chaplin in the first feature-length comedy ever made.

About Jon Boorstin: His first novel, Pay or Play, was called “the definitive send-up of Hollywood” by Publishers Weekly in a coveted starred review. His second, The Newsboys’ Lodging-House, won the New York Society Library Award for Historical Fiction. Boorstin has also written a book of practical film theory, Making Movies Work, which is used in film schools all over the world. The work of an Oscar®-nominated documentary filmmaker and longtime screenwriter and producer, Mabel and Me is the culmination of Boorstin’s lifelong affair with the Movies.

About the Author:
Boorstin's first novel, Pay or Play, was called "the definitive send-up of Hollywood" by Publishers Weekly in a starred review. His second, The Newsboys' Lodging-House was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writer's book and won the New York Society Library Award for Historical Fiction. Boorstin has also written a book of practical film theory, The Hollywood Eye which has found its way to film schools as Making Movies Work. The work of an Oscar®-nominated documentary filmmaker and longtime screenwriter and producer, Mabel and Me is the culmination of Boorstin's lifelong affair with the Movies.

Press Reviews:
My Favorite Hollywood Saga--ReinventedLeonard Maltin's Movie CrazyBY LEONARD MALTIN"...the author paints a vivid portrait of Mabel Normand, a lovable, impulsive, unpredictable woman who followed her heart. In Boorstin's story she comes to trust young Flicker because she knows that he truly cares about her, personally and professionally... Mabel and Me may be a work of fiction, but it is impressively detailed in its portrayal of early 20th century Los Angeles, along with the birth and development of moviemaking in Hollywood... Mabel and Me is a wonderful book."

"The golden age of silent film is Hollywood's most exciting era and a personal favorite of mine. Jon Boorstin's vivid Mabel and Me has brought it to life with conviction and passion."
-Kenneth Turan, film critic, NPR, Los Angeles Times

"Mabel and Me is a rare triumph of the vernacular. It is a lovely and exciting work of fiction, which deserves the avid attention not just of the cinema community, but of everyone who values good writing and good reading."
-Richard Schickel

"Boorstin captures with authenticity the language and colour of the silent film era"
-Kevin Brownlow, film historian and filmmaker

"Boorstin portrays Mabel Normand with passion and deep caring."
-Cari Beauchamp, resident scholar, The Mary Pickford Foundation

See the publisher website: Angel City Press

See the complete filmography of Mack Sennett on the website: IMDB ...