Early Praise for The Original
This stunning novel plunges into the tumultuous life of screen icon Katharine Hepburn, a star whose fierce independence, passionate spirit, and fluid sexuality shattered Hollywood’s rules and redefined what it meant to be a woman in film.
“A riveting and unputdownable journey through fame, rebellion, and the relentless pursuit of authenticity.”—#1 New York Times bestselling author Christina Baker Kline
Katharine Hepburn won more Oscars than any actor in history—and yet her most memorable role is the one she carved for herself.
When young Katharine Hepburn loses her beloved brother, she makes two decisions: she will become famous, and she will never let anyone hurt her again. Leaving home at twenty-one to pursue a career on Broadway, Kate is talent-spotted, screen-tested, and lured to Los Angeles, accompanied by her lover, Laura.
Hollywood in the early 1930s is a town full of secrets. Everyone comes with a story. When Kate arrives in California to launch her film career, she leaves behind her East Coast marriage and icy patrician family to live and love on her own terms. Despite her confrontational manner and unusual beauty, she is scooped into the studio system and launched as a star—but stars must play by the rules and Kate, brilliant, bisexual, and fiercely independent, refuses to conform.
Surrounded by a legendary circle of intimates, including the powerful David and Irene Selznick, charming and romantically conflicted actor Cary Grant, ambitious director John Ford, and millionaire tycoon Howard Hughes, Kate navigates a web of sex, ambition, loyalty, and betrayal. All of them strive for success while struggling to outrun their own secrets. As Kate’s career ascends, she faces an agonizing choice: be the star everyone wants her to be, or risk everything to become the woman she always was.
The author of New York Times Notable Book Vanessa and Her Sister has created a propulsive, emotionally charged novel exploring the cost of fame. With sharp prose and unforgettable characters, The Original is a story of love, aspiration, and the price of living authentically in a world that demands you become someone else.
A New York Times Notable Book • An Entertainment Weekly “Must List” Pick • “Prepare to be dazzled.”—Paula McLain • “Quite simply astonishing.”—Sarah Blake
Praise for Vanessa and Her Sister
“Fiction and history merge seamlessly in this dazzling novel.”—Entertainment Weekly
“Being related to Virginia Woolf can’t have been easy. In this delightful novel, [Priya] Parmar re-imagines the brilliant, fragile writer and her turn-of-the-century bohemian friends, the famous Bloomsbury set, through the eyes of her painter sister Vanessa. . . . You’ll be spellbound.”—People
“Rarely do you encounter a woman who commands as much admiration as does the painter Vanessa Bell in Priya Parmar’s multilayered, subtly shaded novel. . . . Parmar’s fabricated journal is an uncanny success. Its entries, plausible and graceful, are imbued with the same voice that can be found in letters by or about Vanessa. . . . Parmar gives truth and definition to the character of a woman whose nature was as elusive as her influence was profound. She has caught the phantom.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Parmar inhabits the gilded ‘bohemian hinterland’ of Virginia Woolf and her sister Vanessa, creating a vibrant fictional homage.”—O: The Oprah Magazine
“Captivating . . . a subtle exploration of the sisters’ complicated emotional life . . . Through letters and Vanessa’s journal entries, [Parmar] captures the excitement of social experimentation.”—BBC
“Priya Parmar is on a high-wire act all her own in this radiantly original novel about the Bloomsbury Set. Irrepressible, with charm and brio to spare, Vanessa and Her Sister boldly invites us to that moment in history when famous minds sparked and collided. Prepare to be dazzled.”—Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife
“Vanessa and Her Sister is an account of my grandmother’s early life, told with faith, elegance, and an almost uncanny insight into the subject. But this is also an absorbing work of fiction—and Priya Parmar has made Vanessa’s story her own.”—Virginia Nicholson, Vanessa Bell’s granddaughter and author of Among the Bohemians
Nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Original Musical
This revolutionary story celebrates the life of Sylvia Pankhurst – feminist, activist, pacifist, socialist, rebel – the lesser-known Pankhurst at the heart of the Suffragette movement, who changed the lives of working women and men across the world.
