Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures by Emma Straub (2012)

Elsa Emerson was born and raised in Wisconsin, where her family runs a summer theater company.   She grows up around theater and actors, and becomes an actress herself.  She marries another actor and heads off to make their fortune in golden-age, studio system Hollywood. She has a couple of kids, gets discovered by a studio head and becomes a minimal star--now known as Laura Lamont.

She struggles between her identities and faces all sorts of challenges. It's basically a women's picture, like Mildred Pierce, and is a pretty good rags-to-riches actor story that doesn't end when the stardom does.  The story follows Elsa/Laura from ingénue-you're-going-to-be-star-baby to mature actress to dipping her toe into television, the whole time watching Hollywood change as she does.

I really liked some of the characters and the story takes some unexpected turns which are awfully interesting, but the passivity of the main character at times left me slightly cold.  Although I didn't love it while reading it, the more it sits with me, the more I like it and the more it lingers with me.  I love the scope of her life and her career, and how she changes as Hollywood changes--a story that just isn't told very often.