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Dark Star
This novel is based on the author's childhood in a small town in Scotland and explores the codes and conventions created by a closed community, patterns of surveillance, strictures of public morality, evidence of private despair. They engage with the margins of this world, presenting itinerants, outcasts, and misfits with a distinct lack of sentimentality. Moon's work is also striking in its awareness of the position of women in the community: her stories deal with minutiae, with networks of power which operate in apparently insignificant areas.
- GenresFiction
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1929
About the author
Lorna Moon
9 books4 followersLorna Moon (born Nora Helen Wilson Low) was a Scottish author and screenwriter from the early days of Hollywood. She was born in Strichen in Aberdeenshire.
In 1907 Nora emigrated to Canada with her husband, William Hebditch. She worked as a journalist in Winnipeg where she adopted a pen-name based on her literary inspiration, Lorna Doone. An anecdote tells how she contacted Cecil B. DeMille and offered a critical appraisal of the screenplays of the day. He challenged her to come to Hollywood and write them herself if she thought she could do better; and by 1921 she did just that, working as a script girl and screenwriter.
Her literary works include Doorways in Drumorty (1925), a collection of short stories, and the novel Dark Star (1929). Dark Star was a critical success, and in 1930 was adapted for the screen as Min and Bill, starring Marie Dressler and Wallace Beery. Doorways in Drumorty contained a series of stories set in a fictional Scottish town: however the location and characters were drawn from her memories of Strichen, much to the indignation of certain of the townspeople, and her work was banned from the local library.
During her career in Hollywood she had a child by Cecil B. DeMille’s brother William. This child, Richard, grew up unaware of his mother’s identity; in later years he discovered his parentage and wrote the memoir My Secret Mother, Lorna Moon.
Lorna Moon contracted tuberculosis and died in a sanatorium in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1930, aged 44. She was cremated and her ashes were returned to Scotland, to be scattered on Mormond Hill near Strichen.
In 1907 Nora emigrated to Canada with her husband, William Hebditch. She worked as a journalist in Winnipeg where she adopted a pen-name based on her literary inspiration, Lorna Doone. An anecdote tells how she contacted Cecil B. DeMille and offered a critical appraisal of the screenplays of the day. He challenged her to come to Hollywood and write them herself if she thought she could do better; and by 1921 she did just that, working as a script girl and screenwriter.
Her literary works include Doorways in Drumorty (1925), a collection of short stories, and the novel Dark Star (1929). Dark Star was a critical success, and in 1930 was adapted for the screen as Min and Bill, starring Marie Dressler and Wallace Beery. Doorways in Drumorty contained a series of stories set in a fictional Scottish town: however the location and characters were drawn from her memories of Strichen, much to the indignation of certain of the townspeople, and her work was banned from the local library.
During her career in Hollywood she had a child by Cecil B. DeMille’s brother William. This child, Richard, grew up unaware of his mother’s identity; in later years he discovered his parentage and wrote the memoir My Secret Mother, Lorna Moon.
Lorna Moon contracted tuberculosis and died in a sanatorium in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1930, aged 44. She was cremated and her ashes were returned to Scotland, to be scattered on Mormond Hill near Strichen.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 18, 2017
Lyrical and acerbic, full of small town characters incredibly specific to their time and place -- and therefore, as universal as can be. How can you beat a character's whose greatest prowess is mourning at a funeral? Moon's eye for telling details rates amongst the greats. Dedicated to her great friend, screenwriter Frances Marion, who funded the secretaries that took the entire book by dictation, as Moon was bedridden with tuberculosis for the entire writing process. The stories around this novel's creation are just as compelling as the book itself, and some seep into its pages. Well worth seeking out.
Displaying 1 of 1 review