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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 vows to herself: 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 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 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 vows to herself: 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 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.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published April 28, 2026
About the author
Priya Parmar
6 books331 followersPriya Parmar is the author of the novels Exit the Actress and Vanessa and Her Sister, a New York Times Notable Book, as well as co-author of the musical Sylvia (London Old Vic) nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Original Musical. Her forthcoming novel, The Original, will be published by Ballantine in April 2026. She lives with her family and four rescue dogs.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 142 reviews
May 2, 2026
very facinating and informative story. I have to say these stories about the early stars of Hollywood will really make you go woah with excitement. At the same time you will also get an insight at their private lives and some of the personal tragedies they suffered before they were stars or even after their rise to fame and it will make you realize that they are regularl people as well.
Two of the main focuses on this novel are Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. I have to say that before reading this book I only knew maybe a few details about their lives and careers. However, after reading this book I have to say I have a new appreciation of the knowledge that I have learned about their struggles to achieving greatness.
Two of the main focuses on this novel are Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. I have to say that before reading this book I only knew maybe a few details about their lives and careers. However, after reading this book I have to say I have a new appreciation of the knowledge that I have learned about their struggles to achieving greatness.
May 13, 2026
While other Kate Hepburn fans will likely adore this book, the historical fiction tale about the iconic actress was not for me. I found the writing style jarring and wished for more about her later life.
June 20, 2026
3.5 stars
This is an engaging novel of Katharine Hepburn’s rise and fall and hard-fought reascencion as a young actress in the Hollywood of the 30s and 40s. It’s thoroughly researched and largely sticks to the facts of her life, making well-informed guesses in some of the areas where the truth isn’t known.
This is an engaging novel of Katharine Hepburn’s rise and fall and hard-fought reascencion as a young actress in the Hollywood of the 30s and 40s. It’s thoroughly researched and largely sticks to the facts of her life, making well-informed guesses in some of the areas where the truth isn’t known.
August 16, 2026
Absolutely fascinating and such a joy to listen to. I loved getting this glimpse into Katharine Hepburn’s early life, her upbringing, and everything she fought through to become an actress.
I especially enjoyed the old Hollywood atmosphere and getting to know some of the people who were part of her life and career, including Cary Grant and Howard Hughes. Their stories added another fascinating layer to the book and made it feel like stepping into the golden age of Hollywood.
And Cassandra Campbell is simply wonderful. She is one of my favorite narrators, and her expressive and incredibly skilled narration brought the story to life. She captured Hepburn’s voice and personality so beautifully that it sometimes felt as though Hepburn herself were telling the story.
My only wish is that the book had continued further into Hepburn’s life. I would happily have listened to much more. A wonderful audiobook for anyone who loves classic Hollywood and the legendary stars of that era. 🎬❤️
I especially enjoyed the old Hollywood atmosphere and getting to know some of the people who were part of her life and career, including Cary Grant and Howard Hughes. Their stories added another fascinating layer to the book and made it feel like stepping into the golden age of Hollywood.
And Cassandra Campbell is simply wonderful. She is one of my favorite narrators, and her expressive and incredibly skilled narration brought the story to life. She captured Hepburn’s voice and personality so beautifully that it sometimes felt as though Hepburn herself were telling the story.
My only wish is that the book had continued further into Hepburn’s life. I would happily have listened to much more. A wonderful audiobook for anyone who loves classic Hollywood and the legendary stars of that era. 🎬❤️
February 9, 2026
The Original
By: Priya Parmar
Pub Date: April 28, 2026
Publisher: Ballantine Books
I have always loved old Hollywood movies and the stars of a bygone era. This book explores the trailblazer of Katherine Hepburn.
She came to Hollywood not like other starlets. Her hair was short, she wore trousers and she was unapologetic. Her upbringing was difficult and she lost her brother.
The 1930’ s in Hollywood and the likes of powerful men like David Selznick, Howard Hughes and Cary Grant just to name a few, where part of her world. Sex, likes, ambition and situations that made stars do unspeakable things.
She went on to prove she did IT in HER OWN TERMS and lasted in the movies for many years beyond what so many can do. Loved the historical fiction novel.
Thank you Ballantine Books for the advanced copy and MB Communications for having me on tour.
By: Priya Parmar
Pub Date: April 28, 2026
Publisher: Ballantine Books
I have always loved old Hollywood movies and the stars of a bygone era. This book explores the trailblazer of Katherine Hepburn.
She came to Hollywood not like other starlets. Her hair was short, she wore trousers and she was unapologetic. Her upbringing was difficult and she lost her brother.
The 1930’ s in Hollywood and the likes of powerful men like David Selznick, Howard Hughes and Cary Grant just to name a few, where part of her world. Sex, likes, ambition and situations that made stars do unspeakable things.
She went on to prove she did IT in HER OWN TERMS and lasted in the movies for many years beyond what so many can do. Loved the historical fiction novel.
Thank you Ballantine Books for the advanced copy and MB Communications for having me on tour.
May 14, 2026
I love stories about old Hollywood but this one just didn’t happen for me. I could not get past the writing style of all tell and no show. I gave up
Did Not Finish
May 15, 2026Not a fan of the writing style.
May 14, 2026
In “The Original,” Priya Parmar takes on the daunting challenge of breathing fresh life into one of the most scrutinized figures in American film history, Katharine Hepburn. Remarkably, she succeeds not by attempting a conventional cradle-to-stardom biography, but by constructing a vivid fictional mosaic of the actress’s formative years in 1930s Hollywood. The result is an engrossing and emotionally perceptive novel that feels less concerned with documenting famous events than with uncovering the anxieties, wounds, and resilience beneath Hepburn’s famously armored persona.
What makes the novel so compelling is Parmar’s decision to approach Kate indirectly. Rather than remaining fixed within Hepburn’s consciousness, the narrative moves fluidly among a remarkable ensemble of figures orbiting her life. Many of them—Cary Grant, Howard Hughes, Randolph Scott, George Cukor, and Irene Mayer Selznick among them—are fascinating enough to command novels of their own. Through their observations, loyalties, rivalries, and desires, Parmar gradually reveals Hepburn herself. The effect is kaleidoscopic: Kate emerges not as a static icon but as a complicated woman still inventing herself while the Hollywood machinery attempts to invent her first.
Parmar brilliantly captures the suffocating atmosphere of the old studio system, a world in which stars were owned, managed, packaged, and often emotionally manipulated by the studios that profited from them. Public image mattered above all else. Personas were manufactured, scandals suppressed, and private lives distorted into marketable myths. Within that system, Hepburn’s early career becomes especially dramatic because her setbacks arise not merely from personal mistakes but from bad luck, studio mismanagement, and changing public tastes. Parmar charts how close Hepburn came to professional collapse before reinventing herself into the sharp-tongued, fiercely intelligent figure audiences ultimately embraced. The novel’s emotional power lies in that persistence—the sense that Kate survives not because the system protects her, but because she stubbornly refuses to surrender to it.
The book gains much of its momentum from Parmar’s skillful handling of multiple interconnecting storylines. Hepburn’s childhood trauma surrounding her beloved brother’s suicide shadows her throughout the novel. Parmar also explores her mysterious illness and risky surgery that leaves her unable to bear children, her romantic relationships with women, and her intimate friendships with figures such as Irene Selznick and George Cukor. Meanwhile, the surrounding cast receives equally compelling treatment. Cary Grant’s devastating discovery that his supposedly dead mother is alive in a mental institution becomes one of the novel’s most affecting episodes, while Howard Hughes’s dangerous aviation exploits inject excitement and unpredictability into the narrative. The deteriorating marriage of Irene and David Selznick adds another layer of emotional tension.
What is most impressive is Parmar’s restraint. With so many glamorous and volatile personalities in play, the novel could easily have dissolved into gossip or anecdotal excess. Instead, Parmar treats her characters with empathy and nuance, maintaining emotional coherence even as the narrative shifts among perspectives. The structure—brief, punchy sections often centered on different characters—keeps the novel energetic and cinematic. Even when Hepburn is not directly present, the surrounding stories deepen our understanding of the world shaping her.
If the novel has a weakness, it is its abrupt ending. Parmar concludes with Hepburn’s triumph in “The Philadelphia Story,” leaving unexplored the later decades in which she fully transformed into the legendary screen presence now immortalized in film history. Readers may feel deprived of witnessing that final evolution. Parmar compensates somewhat with a closing section summarizing the later lives of many characters, but this lacks the emotional richness of the preceding narrative.
Even so, “The Original” is an absorbing and sophisticated portrait of ambition, reinvention, and survival within Hollywood’s golden age. Rather than demystifying Katharine Hepburn, Parmar accomplishes something more difficult: she restores complexity and vulnerability to a figure long hardened into legend.
What makes the novel so compelling is Parmar’s decision to approach Kate indirectly. Rather than remaining fixed within Hepburn’s consciousness, the narrative moves fluidly among a remarkable ensemble of figures orbiting her life. Many of them—Cary Grant, Howard Hughes, Randolph Scott, George Cukor, and Irene Mayer Selznick among them—are fascinating enough to command novels of their own. Through their observations, loyalties, rivalries, and desires, Parmar gradually reveals Hepburn herself. The effect is kaleidoscopic: Kate emerges not as a static icon but as a complicated woman still inventing herself while the Hollywood machinery attempts to invent her first.
Parmar brilliantly captures the suffocating atmosphere of the old studio system, a world in which stars were owned, managed, packaged, and often emotionally manipulated by the studios that profited from them. Public image mattered above all else. Personas were manufactured, scandals suppressed, and private lives distorted into marketable myths. Within that system, Hepburn’s early career becomes especially dramatic because her setbacks arise not merely from personal mistakes but from bad luck, studio mismanagement, and changing public tastes. Parmar charts how close Hepburn came to professional collapse before reinventing herself into the sharp-tongued, fiercely intelligent figure audiences ultimately embraced. The novel’s emotional power lies in that persistence—the sense that Kate survives not because the system protects her, but because she stubbornly refuses to surrender to it.
The book gains much of its momentum from Parmar’s skillful handling of multiple interconnecting storylines. Hepburn’s childhood trauma surrounding her beloved brother’s suicide shadows her throughout the novel. Parmar also explores her mysterious illness and risky surgery that leaves her unable to bear children, her romantic relationships with women, and her intimate friendships with figures such as Irene Selznick and George Cukor. Meanwhile, the surrounding cast receives equally compelling treatment. Cary Grant’s devastating discovery that his supposedly dead mother is alive in a mental institution becomes one of the novel’s most affecting episodes, while Howard Hughes’s dangerous aviation exploits inject excitement and unpredictability into the narrative. The deteriorating marriage of Irene and David Selznick adds another layer of emotional tension.
What is most impressive is Parmar’s restraint. With so many glamorous and volatile personalities in play, the novel could easily have dissolved into gossip or anecdotal excess. Instead, Parmar treats her characters with empathy and nuance, maintaining emotional coherence even as the narrative shifts among perspectives. The structure—brief, punchy sections often centered on different characters—keeps the novel energetic and cinematic. Even when Hepburn is not directly present, the surrounding stories deepen our understanding of the world shaping her.
If the novel has a weakness, it is its abrupt ending. Parmar concludes with Hepburn’s triumph in “The Philadelphia Story,” leaving unexplored the later decades in which she fully transformed into the legendary screen presence now immortalized in film history. Readers may feel deprived of witnessing that final evolution. Parmar compensates somewhat with a closing section summarizing the later lives of many characters, but this lacks the emotional richness of the preceding narrative.
Even so, “The Original” is an absorbing and sophisticated portrait of ambition, reinvention, and survival within Hollywood’s golden age. Rather than demystifying Katharine Hepburn, Parmar accomplishes something more difficult: she restores complexity and vulnerability to a figure long hardened into legend.
August 23, 2026
Juicy and fascinating! I devoured it!
July 3, 2026
A fascinating historical fiction book that looks into the life of starlet Katharine Hepburn and the golden age of Old Hollywood. Written in short, journal like entries, it bounces back and forth through different periods of Katharine's life and those most influential in it. This makes for a quick read, as the book covers years of her career.
May 20, 2026
This is historical fiction at its finest!
What do you mean I get such well researched histories of 1930s Hollywood while also getting such beautiful writing?
I have never come across a style of writing like this before. It is so introspective and analytical, yet still distant. As a reader, you experience these intricate characters’ deepest emotions through the people around them and through their behaviour. You never get an inside perspective, yet somehow you understand everything.
I have a soft spot for Cary Grant, and I did get giddy every time he appeared on the page, even if it was only in passing. But there were so many characters I loved reading about. I especially loved that none of them were discarded as the story progressed. Even Tom remains present throughout.
Trust this book and let it take you back in time. I enjoyed reading it so much that I kept forcing myself to slow down so it would last longer.
What do you mean I get such well researched histories of 1930s Hollywood while also getting such beautiful writing?
I have never come across a style of writing like this before. It is so introspective and analytical, yet still distant. As a reader, you experience these intricate characters’ deepest emotions through the people around them and through their behaviour. You never get an inside perspective, yet somehow you understand everything.
I have a soft spot for Cary Grant, and I did get giddy every time he appeared on the page, even if it was only in passing. But there were so many characters I loved reading about. I especially loved that none of them were discarded as the story progressed. Even Tom remains present throughout.
Trust this book and let it take you back in time. I enjoyed reading it so much that I kept forcing myself to slow down so it would last longer.
May 17, 2026
I really struggled with the writing style. I found it to be jarring, disconnected and hard to follow.
May 17, 2026
As a Kate Hepburn fan, I adored this book. Short, crisp sentences that made you hear her voice. I liked the focus on her early years and Old Hollywood.
Read
August 14, 2026If you like early Katharine Hepburn movies from the 1920’s through the 1940’s, you will love reading about Kate’s early years in Hollywood and her friendship with Cary Grant, George Cukor, Irene Selznick and Howard Hughes. Kate’s first husband was a wonderful man who gave her the freedom to make movies in Hollywood; as well as supporting her when she became very sick and almost died.
July 27, 2026
Thoroughly enjoyed this book—it has an electric current running through it.
April 30, 2026
There's always been a lot of speculation about Katharine Hepburn's sexuality, but this book just throws that out and is like, "Yeah, Kate and Laura? Lovers in the nighttime." No big reveal, nothing really put on it, just presented as fact. I even checked to make sure I hadn't missed where it was confirmed (it never has been, it's all just based on her... well, her obvious not-straightness in every interaction). I enjoyed that aspect, and overall it was a pretty great story. I assume the reason it's a novel and not a straight biography is because the author was like, "Yeah I'm not doing the 'close friends' crap."
May 27, 2026
I didn’t know anything about Katharine Hepburn before reading this but was immediately drawn into this story. The author takes you on a journey into Kate’s trials, tribulations, and secrets of being a star in 1930s Hollywood. Not only is Kate’s story so interesting but the writing itself is just phenomenal. I love the author’s use of personification and descriptions. Truly felt like I was watching an old Hollywood film in my head as I was reading this book. Don’t skip out on this book! 😍
June 8, 2026
Stylish, surefooted, and sharp, this novel walks a fine line between literary and stage writing. The present tense makes the fascinating cast of characters and the Hollywood golden era leap to life. I thoroughly enjoyed the read.
May 20, 2026
A truly beautiful book about queer Hollywood and the people who made it the golden age of cinema. I found it fascinating and entertaining.
June 2, 2026
Though I always had great admiration for Katharine Hepburn as an actress, I knew very little of her life. This book focuses on an early part of her life and brought in many famous names. The writing was confusing at times and began to get repetitive by the end.
July 29, 2026
Two sentence review: A believable fictionalized account of Kate Hepburn’s extraordinary life from her beginnings in Hollywood until the Philadelphia Story. The connections made to other stars at the time like Howard Hughes, Cary Grant and many important Hollywood moguls are interesting and tell a great story.
August 10, 2026
I picked up this book because I will read absolutely anything and everything about Katharine Hepburn. It is a well written biography, however because it is about intimate moments of Hepburns life, a lot of the book is speculation and imagination. Parmar covers a period of Hepburns life that we don't usually read about, the early days. I was engaged but at times felt like I would be more interested in a straight forward biography, covering the whole span of her career. 4 stars
May 27, 2026
I know it's partly a guessing game, but I found this enjoyable and hope there are sequel(s). Fascinating lady.
August 5, 2026
Not a fan of this book for multiple reasons - stilted writing, unsympathetic main character (if she was like this in real life, no one would have liked her), slow pace. But the kicker for me was the fake hysterectomy. Why not just have Katharine Hepburn not want children? Giving her a hysterectomy to explain her “independence” makes it seem like she could only be happy without children because of her selfish father. Speaking of him, not only was there no hysterectomy, there is no evidence her dad ever operated on her, although the book says he did an appendectomy on her as well.
I enjoy historical fiction and understand some liberties have to be taken, but this one went too far for me.
I enjoy historical fiction and understand some liberties have to be taken, but this one went too far for me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 1, 2026
I didn’t expect to be so pleased with this one!
July 26, 2026
The competing ambitions of Hepburn’s world are exceptionally crafted by Parmar’s unique prose.
July 2, 2026
I feel as if I have just watched a really good movie --- one in which myriad scenes of varying length and intensity jostle for space in my short-term memory and gradually distill into more permanent impressions.
Yes, there’s a lot going on in that sentence, but it reflects in a nutshell what it’s like to travel through THE ORIGINAL, Priya Parmar’s kaleidoscopic novel about the iconic Hollywood star Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003). Parmar makes it abundantly clear that her work is one of fiction. Her telescopic (and occasionally magnified) view is one of a career as it might have unfolded, especially in Hepburn’s formative years, when she was just another East Coast hopeful trying to find a niche among Hollywood’s elite.
But the book is also imagined on the strength of meticulous research, cross-referencing, interviewing, fact-checking, and some very insightful dot-connecting. It might be more accurate to call it modern historical fiction.
Parmar’s prose style fits the brief to a T. There are no chronological shopping lists of steps on the way to fame, no plodding past-tense reflections on paths not taken, or even much in the way of philosophical meditations on the art-of-the-art of acting. Instead, we are whisked into a present-tense immediacy that connects first page to last.
Without ever seeming to trivialize or shortchange the elusive depth of the Katharine Hepburn she strives to reveal, Parmar glides powerfully through her life, losses, successes and relationships with an irresistible stream-of-consciousness that harmonizes amazingly well with the curated image Hepburn herself cultivated to protect her fragile privacy.
Through nine chapters covering 1921 to 1939, THE ORIGINAL plays out in numerous scenes, the contents of which (as with a typical film script) are sparsely identified by locations, names, dates or events. Sometimes they connect in sequence, and other times they don’t; life does not unfold in straight lines either. This format also allows for dramatic jump cuts and sudden changes from one scene to another, which can startle the viewer/reader into seeing things from a different angle.
In spite of her driving momentum throughout the book, Parmar provides many brief pauses to paint compelling word pictures of Hepburn in a variety of professional and imaginary private contexts, along with some of the big-name Hollywood personalities who flowed in and out of her career (not always graciously) --- Cary Grant; his partner, Randolph Scott; director George Cukor; the Selznicks, especially producer David O. and his long-underappreciated wife, Irene; and the mercurial Howard Hughes, to mention only a few.
The total story skillfully alights on more truth than fiction, but it connects seemingly disparate events with imaginative speculation about what went on behind closed doors in Hollywood, especially as social mores and political influences changed in the years leading up to WWII.
Like many other famed screen stars, Hepburn cycled in and out of fashion, partly due to inappropriate or blatantly incompetent casting, and her own or agents’ choices in how she was marketed. While many facts are documented, Parmar sympathetically probes behind the professional veneer to explore how both successes and failures impacted Hepburn’s relationships with friends, family and lovers (of which there were many).
Hepburn won four Academy Awards over her long career, but THE ORIGINAL gives them only passing mention; no more is needed. Similarly, her films are not dissected or commented on either, because they too belong to a well-documented and easily accessible history.
What Parmar does so well here is to reveal through one major actress’s real and imagined lives how women fought to break away from the abuses of a profession in which they were commodified and intellectually infantilized for the better part of a century. Katharine Hepburn was among those who learned how to boldly and bravely claim agency and ownership of their talent. And that always will be true.
Reviewed by Pauline Finch
Yes, there’s a lot going on in that sentence, but it reflects in a nutshell what it’s like to travel through THE ORIGINAL, Priya Parmar’s kaleidoscopic novel about the iconic Hollywood star Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003). Parmar makes it abundantly clear that her work is one of fiction. Her telescopic (and occasionally magnified) view is one of a career as it might have unfolded, especially in Hepburn’s formative years, when she was just another East Coast hopeful trying to find a niche among Hollywood’s elite.
But the book is also imagined on the strength of meticulous research, cross-referencing, interviewing, fact-checking, and some very insightful dot-connecting. It might be more accurate to call it modern historical fiction.
Parmar’s prose style fits the brief to a T. There are no chronological shopping lists of steps on the way to fame, no plodding past-tense reflections on paths not taken, or even much in the way of philosophical meditations on the art-of-the-art of acting. Instead, we are whisked into a present-tense immediacy that connects first page to last.
Without ever seeming to trivialize or shortchange the elusive depth of the Katharine Hepburn she strives to reveal, Parmar glides powerfully through her life, losses, successes and relationships with an irresistible stream-of-consciousness that harmonizes amazingly well with the curated image Hepburn herself cultivated to protect her fragile privacy.
Through nine chapters covering 1921 to 1939, THE ORIGINAL plays out in numerous scenes, the contents of which (as with a typical film script) are sparsely identified by locations, names, dates or events. Sometimes they connect in sequence, and other times they don’t; life does not unfold in straight lines either. This format also allows for dramatic jump cuts and sudden changes from one scene to another, which can startle the viewer/reader into seeing things from a different angle.
In spite of her driving momentum throughout the book, Parmar provides many brief pauses to paint compelling word pictures of Hepburn in a variety of professional and imaginary private contexts, along with some of the big-name Hollywood personalities who flowed in and out of her career (not always graciously) --- Cary Grant; his partner, Randolph Scott; director George Cukor; the Selznicks, especially producer David O. and his long-underappreciated wife, Irene; and the mercurial Howard Hughes, to mention only a few.
The total story skillfully alights on more truth than fiction, but it connects seemingly disparate events with imaginative speculation about what went on behind closed doors in Hollywood, especially as social mores and political influences changed in the years leading up to WWII.
Like many other famed screen stars, Hepburn cycled in and out of fashion, partly due to inappropriate or blatantly incompetent casting, and her own or agents’ choices in how she was marketed. While many facts are documented, Parmar sympathetically probes behind the professional veneer to explore how both successes and failures impacted Hepburn’s relationships with friends, family and lovers (of which there were many).
Hepburn won four Academy Awards over her long career, but THE ORIGINAL gives them only passing mention; no more is needed. Similarly, her films are not dissected or commented on either, because they too belong to a well-documented and easily accessible history.
What Parmar does so well here is to reveal through one major actress’s real and imagined lives how women fought to break away from the abuses of a profession in which they were commodified and intellectually infantilized for the better part of a century. Katharine Hepburn was among those who learned how to boldly and bravely claim agency and ownership of their talent. And that always will be true.
Reviewed by Pauline Finch
June 10, 2026
Struggled through this one! Fictional biographical story of Katharine Hepburn. Thought this would be interesting for its history of the golden age of Hollywood and interesting to read about an actress whose later films I liked and was an iconic figure. The only thing I knew of Hepburn was her longtime love of Spencer Tracy and his not divorcing his wife in spite of living 23 years with Hepburn up to his death. However the book ends before Kate meets Tracy and takes place mainly in the decade of the 1930’s. The author’s note at the end gives a brief summary of different character's lives following WWII and into the decades that follow.
The book, written in narrative style with minimal character conversations, made the reading a bit wearisome. Beginning at the start of her childhood the book revealed a father who was a surgeon with an ego to match, a mother who was very progressive working side by side with Sanger for women’s rights to birth control, an older brother Tom who was Kate’s childhood partner and favorite sibling, whose life and death affected Kate throughout her entire life. The family was very unconventional for the time period where sex was openly discussed, nudity was allowed freely, and life habits were dictated by their physician father such as daily ice cold showers & excelling in sports.
The majority of the book focuses on Kate’s bisexuality and her many sexual relationships to include her marriage to a childhood friend while living and sleeping with a woman friend, her affair with her agent, her romantic relationship with Howard Hughes and her many casual sexual encounters with both males & females. The other focus of the book was Kate’s desire to be renowned for her acting and her rise, fall, and rise again to stardom.
Cary Grant plays a huge role in this book coming from Bristol, England to NYC and his rise to stardom in Hollywood, his living for many years with his “greatest love” Randolph Scott with whom he lived for years in “their” house in domestic bliss in spite of his first (of five) marriages. Although rumored about for years of Grant’s homosexuality and well known to his closest friends (Hepburn, Howard Hughes) the impact of these rumors did not affect Grant’s stardom as rumors of Kate’s sexual orientation almost ruined Hepburn’s. The number of Hollywood stars, directors and producers who were homosexual and bisexual, the promiscuity, the affairs, alcoholism and how the heads of movie companies of RKO, MGM, Paramount (Louis B. Mayor, David O Selznick) hid those secrets and manipulated the stars to be portrayed as wholesome to the public was unbelievable. But no different than how our perceptions are manipulated today. Hollywood and the movie business seems to always have been and remains today a place of secrets, lies, decadence. So for some, this book may be extremely interesting to read about how their favorite stars truly lived but for me I started the book thinking the content would be a historical representation of old Hollywood. And sadly it was just that with a history I have little to no interest in knowing! It became a tedious task to finish the book.
The book, written in narrative style with minimal character conversations, made the reading a bit wearisome. Beginning at the start of her childhood the book revealed a father who was a surgeon with an ego to match, a mother who was very progressive working side by side with Sanger for women’s rights to birth control, an older brother Tom who was Kate’s childhood partner and favorite sibling, whose life and death affected Kate throughout her entire life. The family was very unconventional for the time period where sex was openly discussed, nudity was allowed freely, and life habits were dictated by their physician father such as daily ice cold showers & excelling in sports.
The majority of the book focuses on Kate’s bisexuality and her many sexual relationships to include her marriage to a childhood friend while living and sleeping with a woman friend, her affair with her agent, her romantic relationship with Howard Hughes and her many casual sexual encounters with both males & females. The other focus of the book was Kate’s desire to be renowned for her acting and her rise, fall, and rise again to stardom.
Cary Grant plays a huge role in this book coming from Bristol, England to NYC and his rise to stardom in Hollywood, his living for many years with his “greatest love” Randolph Scott with whom he lived for years in “their” house in domestic bliss in spite of his first (of five) marriages. Although rumored about for years of Grant’s homosexuality and well known to his closest friends (Hepburn, Howard Hughes) the impact of these rumors did not affect Grant’s stardom as rumors of Kate’s sexual orientation almost ruined Hepburn’s. The number of Hollywood stars, directors and producers who were homosexual and bisexual, the promiscuity, the affairs, alcoholism and how the heads of movie companies of RKO, MGM, Paramount (Louis B. Mayor, David O Selznick) hid those secrets and manipulated the stars to be portrayed as wholesome to the public was unbelievable. But no different than how our perceptions are manipulated today. Hollywood and the movie business seems to always have been and remains today a place of secrets, lies, decadence. So for some, this book may be extremely interesting to read about how their favorite stars truly lived but for me I started the book thinking the content would be a historical representation of old Hollywood. And sadly it was just that with a history I have little to no interest in knowing! It became a tedious task to finish the book.
June 22, 2026
Many thanks to NetGalley and Allison & Busby for an advance copy.
Priya Parmar’s novel focuses on Katharine Hepburn, but it’s not a conventional fictional biography. First, ‘Kate’ is only one of the characters, if the principal one. Really, she is the centre around which the whirlpool of ‘Golden Age’ Hollywood circles.
Many of the recognized names in the motion picture capital of the English-speaking world during the 1930s put in an appearance, including George Cukor, David and Irene Selznick, Louis B. Mayer (Irene’s father) and eccentric billionaire aviator Howard Hughes. Some, such as her colleague British immigrant Archie Leach, who transformed into the debonair romantic lead Cary Grant, happily get more coverage, possibly because his own public persona and private life were as far apart as hers. Kate’s ‘companion,’ allegedly (and probably) her lover, the neurotic heiress Laura Harding, doesn’t come across as well as Cary’s ‘husband’ of many years, actor Randolph Scott is much more stable and less attention-seeking, perhaps because he had to abide by the double standard that governed the motion picture business at the time. Until widespread Depression suffering strengthened both public approbation of the seeming debauchery, and enforcement of film censorship laws, the ‘stars,’ male and female, famous and unknown, young and old, pretty much lived as they wanted to. The Hollywood machinery protected them. Katharine Hepburn, perhaps because of her indomitable persona, refused to hide behind any screen, even that of her hapless and sadly devoted businessman husband. She remade herself to represent traditional historic stoicism and bravery, and climbed back up the ladder, even after the failure of several films that were spurned only because she was in them.
I suspect that readers will align themselves in ‘love/hate’ camps. The unusual structure will ensure that few are left indifferent. There are no true chapters, just a few paragraphs, occasionally a few pages, under a new sub-heading. Each change of subject and point of view is indicated by the name of an individual character. The name of a location and a switch to the first person plural (‘We found this…’) announces a collective response, in the nature of ‘New York society disapproved.’ It’s imaginative, but, especially as the length of the sections dwindles toward the end, I can see where it would become annoying to some. For me, it keeps the pace rolling and fills in the interlocking pieces without need for ‘off the page’ contextualization. The only place where I really wanted more background concerns the singular experience of her life and the explanation implied for all her choices: the terrible tragedy of her beloved brother’s death, with which the book opens. And then there is ‘the original,’ Kate herself. As drawn here, there is both much to admire and much to dislike. I really didn’t like Kate Hepburn, whose commitment to being her own true self was less impressive in view of the arrogance, phoniness and indifference to others that were its costs.
Priya Parmar’s novel focuses on Katharine Hepburn, but it’s not a conventional fictional biography. First, ‘Kate’ is only one of the characters, if the principal one. Really, she is the centre around which the whirlpool of ‘Golden Age’ Hollywood circles.
Many of the recognized names in the motion picture capital of the English-speaking world during the 1930s put in an appearance, including George Cukor, David and Irene Selznick, Louis B. Mayer (Irene’s father) and eccentric billionaire aviator Howard Hughes. Some, such as her colleague British immigrant Archie Leach, who transformed into the debonair romantic lead Cary Grant, happily get more coverage, possibly because his own public persona and private life were as far apart as hers. Kate’s ‘companion,’ allegedly (and probably) her lover, the neurotic heiress Laura Harding, doesn’t come across as well as Cary’s ‘husband’ of many years, actor Randolph Scott is much more stable and less attention-seeking, perhaps because he had to abide by the double standard that governed the motion picture business at the time. Until widespread Depression suffering strengthened both public approbation of the seeming debauchery, and enforcement of film censorship laws, the ‘stars,’ male and female, famous and unknown, young and old, pretty much lived as they wanted to. The Hollywood machinery protected them. Katharine Hepburn, perhaps because of her indomitable persona, refused to hide behind any screen, even that of her hapless and sadly devoted businessman husband. She remade herself to represent traditional historic stoicism and bravery, and climbed back up the ladder, even after the failure of several films that were spurned only because she was in them.
I suspect that readers will align themselves in ‘love/hate’ camps. The unusual structure will ensure that few are left indifferent. There are no true chapters, just a few paragraphs, occasionally a few pages, under a new sub-heading. Each change of subject and point of view is indicated by the name of an individual character. The name of a location and a switch to the first person plural (‘We found this…’) announces a collective response, in the nature of ‘New York society disapproved.’ It’s imaginative, but, especially as the length of the sections dwindles toward the end, I can see where it would become annoying to some. For me, it keeps the pace rolling and fills in the interlocking pieces without need for ‘off the page’ contextualization. The only place where I really wanted more background concerns the singular experience of her life and the explanation implied for all her choices: the terrible tragedy of her beloved brother’s death, with which the book opens. And then there is ‘the original,’ Kate herself. As drawn here, there is both much to admire and much to dislike. I really didn’t like Kate Hepburn, whose commitment to being her own true self was less impressive in view of the arrogance, phoniness and indifference to others that were its costs.
July 9, 2026
Celebrity bios are a tricky genre. Long before online social media made Swifties of us all, before Oscar buzz and People and Extra and Beatlemania, movie mags invited us to pry and spy into the lives of our favorite stars. Fictional "memoirs" are even trickier. Blonde, Joyce Carol Oates's treatment of Marilyn Monroe, almost won a Pulitzer, but at 700 pages I found it impossible to finish. In contrast, for me Rodham, Curtis Sittenfeld's reimagining of the life of Hilary Clinton, left me feeling I understood the subject more than any factual news story ever had. The effect of Parmar's The Original is closer to the latter.
Though Katharine Hepburn's career lasted over 60 years, this work focuses only on the beginning, with a third of its length covering only a single year, her first in Hollywood: 1932. In these pages Parmar helps us to understand the woman she identifies as "independent, unapologetic, and original" (369), by portraying how the athletic, wealthy, stubborn, competitive young woman came to be that way.
The research undergirding this imaginative recreation of Hepburn's early years is evident on every page. What is less clear for most of the book is why it is centered on nine characters rather than one. Multiple sections offer omniscient accounts of Hepburn's lovers and colleagues - Laura Harding, Luddy Smith, Irene Selznick, Leland Heyward, George Cukor, Cary Grant, Howard Hughes - plus a hills-eye-view on Tinseltown provided by Hollywood itself. Only at the conclusion do we learn that the climax toward which it all points is The Philadelphia Story, which revived her career in 1939 (on stage) and 1940 (on film).
The benefit of this narrow focus is that it spares us Oates's 700 pages. But much is lost - virtually all of her stage career (no Shakespeare here), most of her 4 Academy Award-winning performances, her decades-long television career, and perhaps her most important partner, Spencer Tracy. One looks in vain for Bogart, O'Toole, Olivier, Fonda.
We do hear of two devastating, family-centered personal tragedies that are said to haunt Hepburn's life - the suicide of her beloved older brother Tom in her youth, and a presumed hysterectomy (performed by her father) at the start of her film success. And over and over we are shown her steely determination to overcome whatever challenges follow. Her first screentest impresses Irene: "This woman does not apologize. there is no calculation, no hesitation. Here is something new" (30-1). She is tough enough to offer up her secrets to the camera even though it makes her feel "split open and raw" (119). She embraces her own (bi)sexuality: "Women are curved to fit, sexy, cultured, artful, interesting and so much easier than men," who either "compete, exhausting, or don't, dull" (54). She is ambitious enough to give up a spouse (male) and a lover (female) who she feels are detrimental to her career, but she is petty and competitive enough to want them to still pine for her (249). Parmar gives Hepburn the last word: "Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get -- only what you are expecting to give -- which is everything" (361). She does.
Though Katharine Hepburn's career lasted over 60 years, this work focuses only on the beginning, with a third of its length covering only a single year, her first in Hollywood: 1932. In these pages Parmar helps us to understand the woman she identifies as "independent, unapologetic, and original" (369), by portraying how the athletic, wealthy, stubborn, competitive young woman came to be that way.
The research undergirding this imaginative recreation of Hepburn's early years is evident on every page. What is less clear for most of the book is why it is centered on nine characters rather than one. Multiple sections offer omniscient accounts of Hepburn's lovers and colleagues - Laura Harding, Luddy Smith, Irene Selznick, Leland Heyward, George Cukor, Cary Grant, Howard Hughes - plus a hills-eye-view on Tinseltown provided by Hollywood itself. Only at the conclusion do we learn that the climax toward which it all points is The Philadelphia Story, which revived her career in 1939 (on stage) and 1940 (on film).
The benefit of this narrow focus is that it spares us Oates's 700 pages. But much is lost - virtually all of her stage career (no Shakespeare here), most of her 4 Academy Award-winning performances, her decades-long television career, and perhaps her most important partner, Spencer Tracy. One looks in vain for Bogart, O'Toole, Olivier, Fonda.
We do hear of two devastating, family-centered personal tragedies that are said to haunt Hepburn's life - the suicide of her beloved older brother Tom in her youth, and a presumed hysterectomy (performed by her father) at the start of her film success. And over and over we are shown her steely determination to overcome whatever challenges follow. Her first screentest impresses Irene: "This woman does not apologize. there is no calculation, no hesitation. Here is something new" (30-1). She is tough enough to offer up her secrets to the camera even though it makes her feel "split open and raw" (119). She embraces her own (bi)sexuality: "Women are curved to fit, sexy, cultured, artful, interesting and so much easier than men," who either "compete, exhausting, or don't, dull" (54). She is ambitious enough to give up a spouse (male) and a lover (female) who she feels are detrimental to her career, but she is petty and competitive enough to want them to still pine for her (249). Parmar gives Hepburn the last word: "Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get -- only what you are expecting to give -- which is everything" (361). She does.
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