READERS GUIDE

The Great Pretenders
Laura Kalpakian
Discussion Questions

1. Uncontested assumptions about women’s roles—sexism—constrict Roxanne’s possibilities. So pervasive are these in the 1950s that she scarcely recognizes their effect. (“Isn’t that what women have always been?” Jonathan quips. “Bartered, baffled, and dim—but kissable.”) After her encounter with Irv Rakoff, Roxanne begins to understand that these underlying notions are rooted in questions of power. How does she use that insight as she establishes herself as an independent agent? Does she fight sexism? Does she use it to her own advantage? How has the role of women in Hollywood changed? How has it stayed the same?

2. Born into Hollywood royalty, a milieu that values beauty in women above all, Roxanne Granville remains always at a disadvantage. How does the birthmark on her cheek affect her life?

3. These characters are constantly being challenged to make choices that can cast them into a net of lies, and potentially into ruin. They are asked to choose between families or lovers. Between personal loyalties or political principles. Between fronting for others, taking the credit, sharing the spoils, or maintaining one’s own work. Who among them makes reckless choices? Who takes calculated risks? Do the individuals in the novel sometimes not know the difference?

4. “To live in Hollywood is to know that fame, money, reputation, friendship, even love and marriage are conditional, flimsy and often for effect. No one is invincible.” Is Roxanne’s early observation borne out in the novel? What is the role of reputation in Roxanne Granville’s Hollywood?

5. How important is the press in the book? Not just the Challenger, but the big daily newspapers, the scandal rags, the trade papers, gossip columns, the critics. Is Roxanne correct in describing the press and the picture business as “mutually voracious cannibals”?

6. Irene and Roxanne, though not actually related, are truly sisters, and yet their values remain very different. How do their values impact their bond? How and why are they reconciled? At the end of the book, do you think Irene will be supportive of Roxanne and her choices?

7. Many of these characters engage in socially unacceptable love affairs, not merely unwise unions, but outright forbidden. Are these people changed by the experience? Are there regrets or insights gleaned? What are the costs to the lovers themselves? To their families and friends? To their reputations? Are these the sorts of relationships that still, in our own day, extract a heavy price from anyone brave or foolhardy enough to engage in them?

8. Returning to LA after Julia’s death, Roxanne’s feelings for Leon remain ambivalent. She does not want to live in his shadow, and makes a great show of independence. Yet she makes many important decisions based on resentment, affection, respect, and other complex emotions she feels for her grandfather. Despite her bravado, why can she not quite free herself from Leon Greene?

9. Roxanne Granville assumes that black people exist to serve white people, herself in particular. The servants at Summit Drive, for instance, are mere backdrop for her. She never suspects that Julia contributes to civil rights causes. How and when does Roxanne start to question her assumptions? How does Terrence Dexter enrich her understanding of the way family and society work—and how they ought to work? Why are both Roxanne’s and Terrence’s extended families so vehemently against their affair? Does Roxanne’s meditation on family Christmas day, 1955, seem utterly improbable for that era? And now? What do you think?

10. Terrence and Roxanne are each brought up with a serious set of doctrines, Terrence in the Baptist church and Roxanne in the Church of Rick and Ilsa. When they first meet they are utterly ignorant of the other’s beliefs, even though they both quote “scripture.” How essential are these beliefs to their relationship? Do they learn from one another? How?

11. The novel is bookended by two funerals. Roxanne comments on the theatrical aspects of each. Is she correct in thinking that they are similar?

12. Terrence Dexter, a seasoned reporter for the Challenger, goes to Montgomery, Alabama, to report on the bus boycott. What does it mean to him, personally and professionally, to be a participant in these events instead of just a witness? How does his time there affect his relationship with Roxanne? With his own family? How does it change him? Can you imagine the book he is writing? Would you want to read it?

13. Roxanne is fond of quoting Julia’s maxim, “Glamour is nothing more than knowing how to talk fast, laugh fluidly, gesture economically and leave behind a shimmering wake.” Do you think Roxanne ever quite figures out what her grandmother meant by this? Julia makes it sound easy; is it? Is this description of glamour allied to the notion of panache that figures so prominently in Roxanne’s vision of herself?

14. Terrence says, “Leon Greene is right. Movies are powerful. They don’t just reflect the way we live, they shape the way we live.” Do you think this is true? Do you think that today’s more diverse films still shape the way we live?

15. In 1957, The Bridge on the River Kwai won seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, which was given to the author of the novel, Pierre Boule. Monsieur Boule did not even speak English. The actual screenplay was written by Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, blacklisted writers who had fled the country, Foreman to England, Wilson to France. (Their credits were not restored until 1984.) Do you see parallels between The Bridge on the River Kwai and Adios Diablo? Why did Carleton Grimes not shut down production on Adios Diablo when he could, before the truth comes out? Can you think of instances today where the tainted reputation of filmmakers or actors is enough to tank a multimillion-dollar movie?

16. “Max, Simon, Nelson, Jerrold, taught me, early on, that the dramatic core of any film is characters who are being tested. Whether high drama or slapstick, High Noon or Duck Soup, the characters don’t have to be saints, they just have to be interesting, have interesting motives, and respond to unlooked-for challenges.” Is this an accurate description of what makes a good film? Now that films are able to depict sex, does that alter the standard?

17. People in the novel are always talking about loyalty as a laudable value. Who are the loyal characters? What or whom are they loyal to? How are they tested?

18. Roxanne describes her job like being “the feeder in the zoo, the guy who walks around with the bucket full of meat and throws it at the lions, and the bucket of bananas for the monkeys and the bucket full of palm fronds for the giraffes. Occasionally I wear a pith helmet. It’s a jungle out there.” What sorts of havoc did television wreak upon the 1950s entertainment world? Why are Gordon and Carleton and Leon so afraid of it?

19. Who are the great pretenders of the title? Are pretenses, lies and secrets all the same thing?