Items related to The Magnificent Esme Wells: A Novel
Set in golden age Hollywood and the burgeoning days of Las Vegas, The Magnificent Esme Wells is a dazzling, bittersweet story of family, love, and deception. We follow Esme-the irrepressible daughter of a Mafia gofer and a Busby Berkeley showgirl-as she comes of age amid racetracks and casinos, mobsters and starlets, on her path to becoming the first burlesque artist on the Las Vegas Strip.Young Esme Wells spends her days where no child should. She wanders the Hollywood Park racetrack trailing her gambling-obsessed father, and the MGM soundstages following her too-beautiful chorus-girl mother, both parents bit players in the big, jostling worlds of mobsters and movie moguls of late 1930s Los Angeles. Illiterate, unkempt, intelligent, and willful, Esme is as ambitious as her parents, and these three opportunists struggle to force the world to open up its fortunes to them. When her father moves to Las Vegas just after the war-to help Bugsy Siegel open his famous Flamingo Hotel-Esme accompanies him. And there, the daughter, now a stunner like her mother, catches the attention of one of the new Strip's most powerful men.Narrated by the twentysomething Esme, The Magnificent Esme Wells moves between pre-WWII Hollywood and postwar Las Vegas-a golden age when gangsters and movie moguls were often indistinguishable in their scramble for power. Esme's voice-sharp, observant, with a quiet, mordant wit-chronicles the rise and fall and further fall of her complicated parents, as well as of her own painful reckoning with love and life. A coming-of-age story with a tinge of noir, The Magnificent Esme Wells portrays the promises and perils of the American dream and its dreamers.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
"This lovely novel, alternately dark and funny, is a powerful examination of both the nature of love and the will to survive."--Ayelet Waldman, author of Love and Treasure
"Esme is street-smart and tough but vulnerable. . . . a memorable character in an unforgettable era."--Louisa Ermelino, Publishers Weekly
"Violent and voluptuous; heartbreaking and profound, The Magnificent Esme Wells is about the losses we endure, and the love we keep betting on, despite the odds. Truly, a showstopper."--Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You and Cruel Beautiful World
"Consider it your good luck to join Esme Wells as she comes of age with the glamour, gangsters, and big dreams of Hollywood and Las Vegas of the 30s and 40s. Like its narrator, this novel is magnificent."--Ann Hood, author of The Book That Matters Most and The Knitting Circle
"Adrienne Sharp sure can WRITE! And her newest novel, The Magnificent Esme Wells, does all the best things: it transports, amuses, delights and heartbreaks. What a gem of a book."--Jennifer Gilmore, New York Times bestselling author of Golden Country and The Mothers
"[I]n this lush saga of the new American West... Adrienne Sharp has given us a protagonist to hope for and a powerful new version of the American dream."--Ron Carlson
"Adrienne Sharp brilliantly recreates the tawdry magic of twin dream machines, studio-era Hollywood and early Las Vegas, in this tale of . . . the scrappy, precocious Esme Wells, her go-for-broke parents, and the toll these dreams took on their dreamers."--Janet Fitch, New York Times bestselling author of White Oleander
"How Esme keeps her head, if not her innocence, among these fast-living, fast-dying Vegas and Hollywood stars makes Adrienne Sharp's novel fascinating and rich with secrets she tells with wit and gusto." --Rosellen Brown, author of Before and After
"This glittering noirish tragedy, with its lushly imagined period landscape and subtle feminist trajectory, is both fun to read and sad to think about." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Sharp's novel, like Jennifer Egan's Manhattan Beach (2017), is propulsive and profound." --Booklist (starred review)
About the Author:
"Esme is street-smart and tough but vulnerable. . . . a memorable character in an unforgettable era."--Louisa Ermelino, Publishers Weekly
"Violent and voluptuous; heartbreaking and profound, The Magnificent Esme Wells is about the losses we endure, and the love we keep betting on, despite the odds. Truly, a showstopper."--Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You and Cruel Beautiful World
"Consider it your good luck to join Esme Wells as she comes of age with the glamour, gangsters, and big dreams of Hollywood and Las Vegas of the 30s and 40s. Like its narrator, this novel is magnificent."--Ann Hood, author of The Book That Matters Most and The Knitting Circle
"Adrienne Sharp sure can WRITE! And her newest novel, The Magnificent Esme Wells, does all the best things: it transports, amuses, delights and heartbreaks. What a gem of a book."--Jennifer Gilmore, New York Times bestselling author of Golden Country and The Mothers
"[I]n this lush saga of the new American West... Adrienne Sharp has given us a protagonist to hope for and a powerful new version of the American dream."--Ron Carlson
"Adrienne Sharp brilliantly recreates the tawdry magic of twin dream machines, studio-era Hollywood and early Las Vegas, in this tale of . . . the scrappy, precocious Esme Wells, her go-for-broke parents, and the toll these dreams took on their dreamers."--Janet Fitch, New York Times bestselling author of White Oleander
"How Esme keeps her head, if not her innocence, among these fast-living, fast-dying Vegas and Hollywood stars makes Adrienne Sharp's novel fascinating and rich with secrets she tells with wit and gusto." --Rosellen Brown, author of Before and After
"This glittering noirish tragedy, with its lushly imagined period landscape and subtle feminist trajectory, is both fun to read and sad to think about." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Sharp's novel, like Jennifer Egan's Manhattan Beach (2017), is propulsive and profound." --Booklist (starred review)
Adrienne Sharp is the critically acclaimed author of the story collection White Swan, Black Swan, a Barnes & Noble Discover Book and a national bestseller; and the novels The Sleeping Beauty, named one of Booklist's ten best first novels of 2005; and The True Memoirs of Little K, which was a finalist for the California Book Award and a Historical Novel Review Editors' Choice, and was translated into six languages.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherHarper
- Publication date2018
- ISBN 10 0062684833
- ISBN 13 9780062684837
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages352
- Rating
Buy New
Learn more about this copy
£ 7.56
Shipping:
£ 3.40
From Canada to U.S.A.
Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace
Stock Image
The Magnificent Esme Wells
Published by
HarperCollins Publisher
(2018)
ISBN 10: 0062684833
ISBN 13: 9780062684837
New
Hardcover
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Hardcover. Publisher overstock, may contain remainder mark on edge. Seller Inventory # 9780062684837B
Buy New
£ 7.56
Convert currency
Stock Image
The Magnificent Esme Wells: A Novel
Seller:
Rating
Book Description hardcover. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 0062684833-11-30845085
Buy New
£ 11.03
Convert currency
Stock Image
The Magnificent Esme Wells: A Novel
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: New. Buy with confidence! Book is in new, never-used condition. Seller Inventory # bk0062684833xvz189zvxnew
Buy New
£ 11.04
Convert currency
Stock Image
The Magnificent Esme Wells: A Novel
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: New. New! This book is in the same immaculate condition as when it was published. Seller Inventory # 353-0062684833-new
Buy New
£ 11.04
Convert currency
Stock Image
The Magnificent Esme Wells: A Novel
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 002191
Buy New
£ 8.24
Convert currency
Seller Image
The Magnificent Esme Wells: A Novel by Sharp, Adrienne [Hardcover ]
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. Seller Inventory # 9780062684837
Buy New
£ 16.91
Convert currency
Stock Image
TheMagnificentEsmeWells Format: Hardcover
Published by
Harper Collins Publishers
ISBN 10: 0062684833
ISBN 13: 9780062684837
New
Quantity: > 20
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: New. Brand New. Seller Inventory # 9780062684837
Buy New
£ 15.78
Convert currency
Stock Image
The Magnificent Esme Wells: A Novel
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_0062684833
Buy New
£ 17.91
Convert currency
Seller Image
Magnificent Esme Wells (Hardcover)
Published by
Harpercollins Publishers Inc, New York
(2018)
ISBN 10: 0062684833
ISBN 13: 9780062684837
New
Hardcover
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. Hardcover. From the nationally bestselling author of The True Memoirs of Little K, a deeply felt and historically detailed novel of family, loss, and love, told by an irrepressible young girl-the daughter of a two-bit gangster and a movie showgirl-growing up in golden-age Hollywood and Las Vegas in its early days. Esme Silver has always taken care of her charming ne'er-do-well father, Ike Silver, a small-time crook with dreams of making it big with Bugsy Siegel. Devoted to her daddy, Esme is often his "date" at the racetrack, where she amiably fetches the hot dogs while keeping an eye to the ground for any cast-off tickets that may be winners. In awe of her mother, Dina Wells, Esme is more than happy to be the foil who gets the beautiful Dina into meetings and screen tests with some of Hollywood's greats. When Ike gets an opportunity to move to Vegas-and, in what could at last be his big break, to help the man she knows as "Benny" open the Flamingo Hotel-life takes an unexpected turn for Esme. A stunner like her mother, the young girl catches the attention of Nate Stein, one of the Strip's most powerful men. Narrated by the twenty-year-old Esme, The Magnificent Esme Wells moves between pre-WWII Hollywood and postwar Las Vegas-a golden age when Jewish gangsters and movie moguls were often indistinguishable in looks and behavior. Esme's voice-sharp, observant, and with a quiet, mordant wit-chronicles the rise and fall and further fall of her complicated parents, as well as her own painful reckoning with love and life. A coming-of-age story with a tinge of noir, and a tale that illuminates the promise and perils of the American dream and its dreamers, The Magnificent Esme Wells is immersive, moving, and compelling. From the nationally bestselling author of The True Memoirs of Little K, a deeply felt and historically detailed novel of family, loss, and love, told by an irrepressible young girlthe daughter of a two-bit gangster and a movie showgirlgrowing up in golden Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780062684837
Buy New
£ 21.84
Convert currency
Stock Image
The magnificent Esme Wells
Seller:
Rating
Book Description hardcover. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # SKU9780062684837
Buy New
£ 11.69
Convert currency