Delayed Rays of a Star by Amanda Lee Koe
Review of Delayed Rays of a Star by Amanda Lee Koe
“Men would mouth off without thinking twice about who they were crossing. Never having to fight for anything made them complacent and impulsive.”
Delayed Rays of a Star by Amanda Lee Koe (2019). Published by Doubleday Books.
I saw this book on the shelf at the library, and as soon as I saw who was on the cover I was absolutely sold to whatever was in this book. I recognized Anna May Wong and Marlene Dietrich immediately, but I didn’t know the third figure. It was specifically Anna May Wong that had me sold because I’m so interested in her role in film history, how she was subjected to play the same roles over and over again that were racist stereotypes of what Chinese people were expected to be by white society. If you’re into Anna May Wong lore, definitely recommend Sally Wen Mao’s poetry collection Oculus.
Anyways, this is not a work of nonfiction. It is fiction, choosing to replicate the lives of the three women it’s depicting in ways that insert thoughts and actions into their personal history. Don’t take all of it in the way that you might interpret a certain line of dialogue as truth. There are some well-researched things I didn’t even know about in this book, which is amazing considering my film history and star knowledge. One of these things was that JFK and Marlene Dietrich had a sexual encounter despite the awkward age gap.
I’ve written so much already and we haven’t even gotten into the review portion of this post! Let’s dive into it, shall we?
Content
The inspiration for this story lies in a single photograph that was taken at a Berlin party. In it Anna May Wong, Marlene Dietrich, and Leni Riefenstahl, all global stars in their own ways, pose for the photographer. It’s a collision of worlds, one in which this story starts in before deviating into the separate lives of these women. We also have fictional characters sprinkled in to embellish the story, such as the prostitute worker who has now become Marlene’s maid in her old age, and a random soldier from Germany who’s gay and lost his lover in the war. These side stories are moving, almost worthy of their own novels, but, alas, they are diminished with the combined star power of the three women this novel is focusing on.
Each of the women holds a specific theme within their story. For Marlene Dietrich, it’s the concept of sexuality. For those who don’t know film history, Dietrich was well-known in the Pre-Code era for having been in the first movie depicting a gay female scene, and Dietrich herself dressed androgynously, often sporting trousers and blazers.
Then we transition into the world of Anna May Wong, who was often forced into a single racist box about what she could play, and essentially was rejected in both America and China. She couldn’t speak much Mandarin or Cantonese, was very American, but was rejected because she was Asian. But in China she was rejected because she was not Chinese enough.
Then for Leni Riefenstahl the problem was sexism. She was a major director of Nazi propaganda but often was undercut and not represented for her work because she was a woman and was thus seen as inferior.
The book is split into sections, and within its sections it split narratives based on which woman it is focusing on for the narrative. And then within the narrative it’ll then potentially focus on a side character, like Marlene’s Chinese maid. I felt like we could’ve had the side characters that were fictional in a completely different novel. I love them and their stories, which is why I’m making this point. I think they had enough substance in them to become full-on novels, characters that we would love to see again as readers. But by making them mere side characters we then shun them and their stories to the sidelines.
Each and every character was well-developed in my humble opinion. The writing started to lag once we got into the technicalities of some of these women’s lives—I specifically thought it began to drag a bit as it was dense towards the section in which Leni describes her work and life within the Nazi Party. Leni is deeply in denial about what the Nazi Party is into, but it doesn’t make her involvement any better.
Overall Thoughts
I was originally drawn to this book by its beautiful cover, but it was everything I expected it to be. The new characters add some spice for those who are already familiar with the lives of these women, but I wonder if they were necessary. I wanted to also see more about film history than the book had, because it particularly drags at some points in regards to their personal lives. I found the Wong and German director’s chapters to be stronger than the Dietrich chapters, although the Chinese maid makes it a bit more bearable to get through. All in all, if you’re interested in film history in any way, this is a book for you because you’ll get a look into three brilliant minds (albeit fictionalized).
