From Dust to Stardust
From the bestselling author of Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk comes a novel about Hollywood, the cost of stardom, and selfless second acts, inspired by an extraordinary true story.
Chicago, 1916. Doreen O'Dare is fourteen years old when she hops a Hollywood-bound train with her beloved Irish grandmother. Within a decade, her trademark bob and insouciant charm make her the preeminent movie flapper of the Jazz Age. But her success story masks one of relentless ambition, tragedy, and the secrets of a dangerous marriage.
Her professional life in flux, Doreen trades one dream for another. She pours her wealth and creative energy into a singular achievement: the construction of a one-ton miniature Fairy Castle, the likes of which the world has never seen. So begins Doreen's public tour to lift the nation's spirits during the Great Depression--and a personal journey worth remembering.
A sweeping journey from the dawn of the motion picture era through turbulent twentieth-century America, From Dust to Stardust is a breathtaking novel about one determined woman navigating change, challenging the price of fame, and sharing the gift of real magic.
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Kathleen Rooney is a founding editor of Rose Metal Press, a nonprofit publisher of literary work in hybrid genres, as well as a founding member of Poems While You Wait, a collective of poets and their vintage typewriters who compose poetry on demand. Her most recent books include the novels Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk and Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey. Her poetry collection Where Are the Snows won the 2021 X. J. Kennedy Prize and was published by Texas Review Press in fall of 2022. She is a winner of the Ruth Lilly Prize from Poetry magazine and the Adam Morgan Literary Citizen Award from the Chicago Review of Books, and her criticism appears in the New York Times, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Brooklyn Rail, Chicago magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. She lives in Chicago with her spouse, the writer Martin Seay, and teaches English and creative writing at DePaul University.
"...Enchanting...Rooney sketches her quirky characters in sparkling prose...Devotees of golden age Hollywood should check this out." --Publishers Weekly
"Kathleen Rooney deftly weaves delectable film and women's history into her enrapturing tale... [Her] delight in the real story behind this richly faceted novel burnishes it to a bewitching luster." --Booklist (starred review)
"...Rooney...has done her research and she presents it gracefully...it works because it seems to be creating a movie in your mind." --The Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Fans of the early Hollywood era will enjoy this fictionalized treatment of actress, collector, and philanthropist Colleen Moore..." --Historical Novels Review
"Kathleen Rooney is a master of historical fiction, and her latest release is one of her most exciting journeys into the past yet. Although the novel doesn't shy away from the tragedy of ambition and circumstance, Rooney elicits wonder like few other writers can, making every new chapter an absolutely enchanting read." --Chicago Review of Books
"Kathleen Rooney takes us on a wild romp through the Jazz Age of Hollywood as she brings to life one of the most unforgettable icons of that era. In this vivid fictional retelling of the life of Colleen Moore--the original flapper of silent films--she reminds us that the line between fantasy and reality is gossamer and that even the strongest of women need their dreams." --Melanie Benjamin, New York Times bestselling author of The Aviator's Wife and The Girls in the Picture
"If you love unexplored history; vibrant, strong women; and the glamour and grit of early Hollywood, you will adore this story. Full of magic and moxie, From Dust to Stardust is a Depression-era Cinderella story that leaves its mark." --Amy Harmon, New York Times bestselling author
"Enchanting." --Ron Hansen, author of Mariette in Ecstasy
"Whether you have visited Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago or not, you'll be delighted to read the story behind its creation, as well as the story of its remarkable creator, embodied here in Kathleen Rooney's novel based on Moore's life and legacy. Even if you are very familiar with the Castle, this lovely novel will persuade you to pay another visit. Kathleen Rooney gives us a narrator who provides an insider's perspective on the dawn of the film era and the tumultuous transition from silent movies to talkies. And she does so while offering her readers the best of what historical novels can do: she gives the reader not only a view of what happened, but also insight into timeless issues of art and artistry, artists and power, (and the lack of power) and the hardships and joys of love." --Robert McDonald, The Book Stall, Winnetka, IL
