Delayed Rays of a Star

by Amanda Lee Koe

A dazzling novel following the lives of three groundbreaking women--Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong, and Leni Riefenstahl--cinema legends who lit up the twentieth century

At a chance encounter at a Berlin soirée in 1928, the photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt captures three very different women together in one frame: up-and-coming German actress Marlene Dietrich, who would wend her way into Hollywood as one of its lasting icons; Anna May Wong, the world's first Chinese American star, playing for bit parts while dreaming of breaking away from her father's modest laundry; and Leni Riefenstahl, whose work as a director would first make her famous--then, infamous.

From this curious point of intersection, Delayed Rays of a Star lets loose the trajectories of these women's lives. From Weimar Berlin to LA's Chinatown, from a seaside resort in East Germany to a luxury apartment on the Champs-Élysées, the different settings they inhabit are as richly textured as the roles they play: siren, muse, predator, or lover, each one a carefully calibrated performance. And in the orbit of each star live secondary players--a Chinese immigrant housemaid, a German soldier on leave from North Africa, a pompous Hollywood director--whose voices and viewpoints reveal the legacy each woman left in her own time, as well as in ours.
Amanda Lee Koe's playful, wry prose guides the reader dexterously around murky questions of ego, persona, complicity, desire, and difference. Intimate and raw, Delayed Rays of a Star is a visceral depiction of womanhood--its particular hungers, its calculations, and its eventual betrayals--and announces a bold new literary voice.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Film, LGBT, Queer, Book Club

389 pages, Hardcover

First published July 9, 2019

About the author

​​Born and raised in Singapore, Amanda Lee Koe has lived in Beijing, Berlin and Bangkok and is now based in New York.

She was the youngest winner of the Singapore Literature Prize for the short story collection Ministry of Moral Panic (Epigram, 2014), shortlisted for the Frankfurt Book Fair's LiBeraturpreis and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt's International Literature Prize.
​
Her debut novel, Delayed Rays of A Star (Doubleday, 2019), won the Henfield Prize, awarded to the best work of fiction by an MFA candidate at Columbia University's School of the Arts. It was a Straits Times #1 Bestseller, and an NPR Best Book of the Year.

Her second novel, Sister Snake (Ecco, 2024), was a Gold House Book Club pick, a RuPaul’s Allstora Sapphic Book Club selection, an Amazon Editor’s Pick, a Center for Fiction December pick, an American Bookseller’s Indie Next December pick, and one of Kirkus Review’s best fiction books of the year.

Reviews

[Marysya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Дуже класна книжка! Вона об'ємна, бо фактично це три романи в одній історії.
Драма трьох актрис ХХ ст. - Марлен Дітріх (якої тут найбільше), Лені Ріфеншталь (режисерки нацистів) та Анни-Мей Вонг (китаянки-американки).
Кожна лінія переплітається з іншою, залучаючи інших відомих осіб того часу - Вальтера Беньяміна, Ремарка, Джозефа фон Штернберга, Геббельса, Гітлера, Сьюзен Зонтаґ тощо.
Кожна історія сповнена драматизму та внутрішньої боротьби й показує шлях кожної героїні до слави; періоди тріумфу та занепаду, аж до смерті кожної.
Лінія - Дітріх найбільш епатажна та скандальна з пікантними історіями, яких в житті актриси було немало.
- Лені Ріфеншталь - дуже мене тригерила, бо це приклад "іскуство внє палітікі" - типу я митець і не знаю нічого про злочини нацистів, лише набираю масовку для свого фільму з в'язнів концтабору (ой, а їх хіба вбивали там?!) та співпрацюю з Гітлером/Геббельсом, щоб отримати гроші на свої фільми. Заключне інтерв'ю-виправдання з нагоди її 101 дня народження викликає хіба злість через несправедливість і безкарність, якої й зараз повно :(
- Анни-Мей Вонг - найскромніша та не така яскрава як двоє інших; основний конфлікт - расизм амер. кінематографу, де її китайська зовнішність стала перепоною на шляху до головних ролей.
Кіномани знайдуть тут багато цікавого про розвиток кіноіндустрії ХХ ст та легендарних фільмів "Блакитний ангел", "Шанхайський експрес" тощо.
Оформлення Аграфки та переклад Анни Вовченко як завжди прекрасні.
В мене лише питання, чому в укр. виданні немає фото цих трьох актрис, зроблене Айзенштадтом, з якого й починається роман? Бо в Подяці вказано, що в оригінальному виданні роман починається і закінчується фото, що є дуже логічним.
Цей роман дійсно вартий уваги і швидко читається :)

[Martie Nees Record · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Doubleday Books
Publication Date: July 9, 2019

Spanning the 1920s to 2003, this sprawling novel is expertly woven with characters that are powerfully alive. Koe’s novel was inspired by a 1928 photograph taken in Berlin of then up and coming real-life actresses, Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong, and Leni Riefenstahl, at a party in Berlin. For those who don't know these film icons, Marlene Dietrich was a gender-bending German actress who was one of the highest-paid Hollywood stars in her day. Anna May Wong was the first Chinese American actress to achieve international acclaim. Leni Riefenstahl was an actress turned director of Nazi propaganda films as well as nonpolitical films.

There are two moving secondary characters in the novel. There is a Chinese maid who was a onetime sex-trafficked prostitute. She now takes care of an old and difficult reclusive woman who happens to be Marlene Dietrich. And there is a gay German soldier who had worked in films before the war. He was recruited off the battlefield to be a film crew member with Riefenstahl. He is mourning the lover he watched die in battle. Through his character, one gets glimpses of the average young German soldier’s thoughts during the war. Not at all different than from those they were fighting. “Please God let me live through this war…Why am I crawling in the mud when the bigwigs that started the war are safely sitting at home?” Both characters are written in a way that will break your heart without being saccharine.

The ambiguous novel takes on many subjects:

There is sexuality. Marlene Dietrich’s public image included openly defying sexual norms. She was known for her androgynous dressing fashion sense. Dietrich was the Hollywood legend who made being queer acceptable, even downright sexy. Men and women both drooled over her and she famously bedded both. How she got away with this in that period of time is quite a feat. Perhaps it was her narcissist personality traits that helped her pull it off. Still, while America adored her, Germany was angry and disowned her. Marlene remained Marlene until the end of her life. The author writes a scene of her maid holding her nose while cleaning an antique Limoges pitcher the 88-year-old uses as a bedpan. In her famous throaty voice, she hollers at the maid, "Everyone should be glad I can still pee." For her funeral, she requested that red and white carnations be distributed to those who attended. A red carnation would be handed to those who slept with Dietrich and a white one to those who didn’t. She fantasized fistfights over ‘You slept with her and I didn’t!’ These laugh out loud moments are written to perfection. (This reviewer googled an interview with Marlene’s daughter and learned that this was indeed her mother’s funeral wish. Her mom would have been very disappointed if she knew it wasn’t carried out).

There is racism. Despite being born in California, and the daughter of parents who were themselves born here, Wong was only offered bad/evil woman Chinese character roles. She was never a lead character. The Chinese were as furious with her as the Germans were of Dietrich. A moving scene in the book happens when she is in China for a publicity tour. Wong is criticized by a film critic for taking stereotypical roles. She tries to explain that as a non-white in America life can be hard. She fiercely fought for different roles. She desperately wanted the lead role in the film “The Good Earth.” The movie takes place in turn-of-the-century China. She thought she had it. She was deep into preparation, giving ideas and costume suggestions when she received a phone call informing her that the role went to a white actress. The reason: She was too Chinese.

There is sexism. Leni Riefenstahl was an accomplished filmmaker, one of the first of female filmmakers of her generation. Still, she is easy not to like. She received financial support from Hitler but, after the fall of the Nazi regime, claimed no knowledge of the Holocaust. Koe paints her as willfully unknowing. Leni is written in a way that one can ‘almost’ understand where she is coming from. Since she was a woman, no one was willing to take her seriously as a director and back her films. She took money where she could and concentrated on her art. Like Anna May, she was forced to take whatever she got in order to perform. In 1993 there was a documentary made about her, “The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl.” Maybe, this is why she is the only one of the three who gets an entire section in her own voice.

Koe’s debut novel shows that she is a master storyteller. Clearly, her talent comes from being a fellow of the International Writing Program of Iowa and a fiction editor of Esquire Singapore as well as the editor of the National Museum of Singapore’s film journal. “Delayed” will appeal to a wide variety of readers: Fans of historical fiction centering on women, film buffs, gossipy stories, and those who enjoy WWII political novels that feel like nonfiction–in other words, for fans of all genres.

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[Xueting · Rating 4 out of 5]

Five stars for the impressive execution of this ambitious, epic novel and for the excellent, beautiful writing. But I docked a star based on my personal reading experience - it's quite a heavy and dense read, such that sometimes I had trouble getting back into the story after putting it down for a while. I also don't really like stories that remove quotation marks from the dialogue because it can get hard to differentiate dialogue from normal narration, and I just don't get the purpose. Is it just a fancy and quirky stylistic choice?

The novel opens in the 1920s, at a party in Berlin where three actresses Anna May Wong, Marlene Dietrich and Leni Riefenstahl met for the first time and pose for a photograph together. Yup, the novel is a historical fiction with real-life famous people as its characters. There's even the two photographs of the three women taken at the party inserted into the book. The reader then follows the three women's lives in the subsequent decades, as they advance their acting (and also, for Leni, directing) careers against the chaotic rise and fall of the Nazi regime. The story is divided into three major segments which are individually split up into three mini-segments, each taking turns to focus on one of the women. Within each mini-segment are a number of chapters that really feel like short stories, because of the way they jump to whole new situations and often even a different character as the chapter's focus. There are lots of side characters, such as Marlene's Chinese maid and the lighting staff on Leni's film production team, and they are vividly developed too. I actually think some of the most memorable chapters come from the side characters.

Anna May, Marlene and Leni turn into strong, memorable characters too. I knew pretty much nothing about all of them - I'll admit it, I'd never even heard of Marlene and Leni before this novel - so getting to know their lives and legacy was fascinating to me. I restrained myself from googling them so I can get to know them from this novel, but after finishing it I did google them and I'm intrigued to see how closely the novel follows their real lives. However, I was expecting more connections between the three of them and their stories, but only Anna May and Marlene were really in each other's lives after they met at the party. So it felt disjointed, reading the three women's chapters together. They shared a common socio-political context and themes about art, being a female artist and fame, but still I had to re-orientate myself a bit when I move between the mini-segments.

Leni's chapters were also the heaviest, and the tone was quite different from Anna May's and Marlene's, although Anna May's chapters also dealt with racism in early 20th century America and the struggle to find home for the Asian American diaspora. Leni's chapters are very heavy because they go quite deep into the political climate of Nazi Germany, with Hitler and Joseph Goebbels both making appearances and even getting dialogue. Leni was also a controversial director of Nazi propaganda films, and this novel explores how aware and intentional she was in creating Nazi propaganda, raising questions about whether we can and should separate art from politics, and art from the artist. It's very bold of the author to tackle such controversial and complex issues in real history, approaching them from different perspectives, and she has the skill and is knowledgeable about them to do so with sensitivity. Even though the writing is a bit dense, I was very engaged in the story most of the time, and I really cared and felt for the characters.

Amanda Lee Koe is definitely one of my favourite Singapore authors now, along with Balli Kaur Jaswal. I'd only ever read one of her short stories from her award-winning collection "Ministry of Moral Panic," but I could tell her writing is really good, and this, her first novel, shows it even more. She's so smart I'd feel intimidated if I ever meet her in real life!!

Thank you to Pansing for sending me copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.

[Olha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Гарно написано, але після неї мені сумно 🙁

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Я могла б сказати, що це був "l'amour de trois", але все було дуже навпаки.

На вечірці випадково-невипадковим чином трійко жінок потрапляють у кадр. Яскраві, сильні, які вміють грати на публіку не тільки на сцені.

Марлен Дітріх.
Анна-Мей Вонг.
Лені Ріфеншталь.

В кожної з них є свої плани і бачення їх втілення. Та кожна з них зіштовхнеться з реальністю, яка вимагатиме боротьби за свої мрії. Та чи всі зможуть?..

Мені страшенно сподобалася ця книжка. Авторці вдалося вповні передати образ кожної з головних героїнь та розповісти про їх долі з дещо іншого кута. Її персонажки сприймаються неймовірно живими, ніби справді дивишся фільм, а не читаєш книжку.

Дізнавшись вже опісля більш детальну біографію кожної, я розумію, чому мене щоразу переслідувало відчуття, що навіть у книжці Анна-Мей займає досить проміжне місце. В силу заборон того часу, вона просто не мала змоги показати себе повністю такою, як хотіла б.

Крім того, мені дуже запали в душу історії інших героїв, які мали змогу познайомитися з котроюсь з трьох жінок. І ми змогли побачити як це змінило їх життя. Мені неймовірно боляче від історії про Ібрагіма та Бебе 💔

По відчуттях, для мене це дуже осіння книжка і я рада, що прочитала її саме зараз.

[Jessica T. · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1928, a photograph was taken of Anna May Wong, Marlene Dietrich, and Leni Riefenstahl, at a party at Weimar, Berlin. Amanda Lee Koe uses this photograph as the basis for her debut novel Delayed Rays of a Star. In the novel we follow the lives of these three women over the course of the 20th century.. I have read Dietrich’s biography and Riefenstahl’s autobiography and never have I read a novel that uses real people so authentically. Each character... main to minor glows. It is a book about sexism, art, racism, and consequences. “Our smallest actions lead to large outcomes, when we cannot yet know it.” Amanda Lee Koe is a master storyteller. This is her epic. “Everything became a fantastic joke if you could afford to hang around long enough for the punchline.”

(Listening to the Smith’s strangeways, here we come in honor of my two favorite characters Ibrahim and Bébé..)

From netgalley for an honest review...

[Aiza Idris (biblio_mom) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love historical fiction! But this highly ambitious and chaotic at times just fell short. Its a heavy thing to read and digest. I found my thoughts wondering about countless of times reading this. There's no quotation marks for me to be able to differentiate between their thoughts and speech, and the sexy parts isn't sexy. I don't read sexy stuff, but consider this as a don't-expect-anything-spicy kind of early notice.

But If you like the behind-the-scene of female performers lives, specifically about them climbing up the fame ladders kind of story, this might be for you, especially if you're someone from the industry because I can see the potential for the story to be loved by the right "audiences". One strong point for this is, its about women's resilience against discrimination. I always like that in any female-related stories.

[Saimon (ZanyAnomaly) · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Men would mouth off without thinking twice about who they were crossing. Never having to fight for anything made them complacent and impulsive."

I have been trying to articulate why I love this book for the past 5 months now, and I don't think I still can do it. Because Delayed Rays Of A Star is one of those - one of a kind, beautifully written books that shatter every standard you've set for a book to be good and makes you go "oh wow, I love this in a way like I've never loved any other book".

So, what is Delayed Rays Of A Star about? Delayed Rays Of A Star is part historical fiction and part biographical narrative of 3 well-known women during the world war 2 era - namely,
- Marlene Dietrich, actress, diva, and femme fatale - one of the highest paid Hollywood actress of her time
- Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American actress and
- Leni Riefenstahl, one of the first female filmmakers, famously infamous for the nazi propaganda films she made for Hitler.

And all of this begins with a picture. A picture in which all three women were seen together at a party before their paths diverged in their different life trajectories (and interweaved along the way).

"Marlene, do you identify more as German or American?"
"At the best of times, Marlene said, categorical limitations should be difficult to determine, in nationality as in gender. Why, please, should a table be male in German, female in French, and castrated in English?"

Marlene was a force to be reckoned with, a woman who got her way using her charm, humor, quick-wit, and confidence. oh, and her sexuality. A woman who did not restrict herself in any way in her professional career as well as her personal life - but always remaining the icon that everyone around her revered in awe. And Amanda Lee Koe manages to extract Marlene's personality and character so skillfully through her writing that, now I am also among the countless men (and women!) who were/are infatuated with her.

"by their very nature decisions tended towards narrowing life's possibilities, but Marlene had a knack for making decisions that opened rather than closed, shrugging labels off like they were fleas."

Anna May Wong, was the daughter of a laundry man who aspired to be the heroine in movies, but hollywood had other plans for her. As a Chinese American, she was always cast as the villain who dies or the side character (who dies so the hero can unite with the white lead actress). And of course, her roles were all caricatures based on chinese stereotypes, which garnered her hateful criticism in China. And we see what Anna feels about being able to pursue her passion, but in a bad light.

"But retrospection is a ripe-looking fruit a few sly boughs out of reach. We are not given to know if its flesh is tart or sweet until everything is too late"

Leni Riefenstahl is the most controversial character that Amanda Lee Koe has taken upon herself to write because, Riefenstahl was a director who was responsible for making many nazi propaganda films. She was ambitious, self absorbed and heavily in denial of what she was contributing to. Mind you, she is still a villain, and Koe doesn't shy away from saying that - but overall, her perspective added something essential to this book.

There were also a few side characters whose story were also well fleshed out to provide more depth to the story. I don't wanna just call them side characters cause they really do bring a whole different depth to the story.

so, to conclude this already long review - Delayed Rays Of A Star is THE novel you should add to your immediate TBR to read cause the characters and the writing will stay with you forever and that is why it is one of my top reads of 2019 and all time favorite read and Amanda Lee Koe goes directly to my auto-buy author list. Don't sleep on this book. That's all.

I rate this a full freaking 5🌟 /5 in case anyone still needs a number after this glowing review!

PS- this book also has some of the most creative and bizarre chapter titles ever. You'll know when you see it.

Thanks to Bloomsbury India for providing me with a review copy of this book!

[Iryna K · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 зірочок
Гарна книжка про кіно, історію ХХ століття і людей, знаменитих і не дуже.
Мені сподобалося, як авторка олюднює історичні постаті (наприклад, лені ріфеншталь) без апологетичності, і можна відчувати емпатію, не відкидаючи відповідальності за скоєне зло.

[Elvina Zafril · Rating 3 out of 5]

An amazing read. It was wonderful.

Quite heavy for me. A historical and biographical fiction, Touches on the inner workings of movie making and the mixing of reality and fantasy. There were many themes I liked, the fight for control, the changing relationships and the way each character saw each other.

I had difficult time getting through this book because it kind of heavy to me, I just had to put it down for days, but I finished it anyway. Bravo!

The plot was okay and neat. Easy to follow. I don't know about the characters before, it's just feels so good to know each one of them throughout the book.

Thank you, Pansing for sending me a copy of Delayed Rays of a Star in return for an honest review. This book is available at all good bookstores.

[Kristi · Rating 1 out of 5]

I like the premise of this book, but having just begun reading, I am becoming skeptical. First of all there are no quotation marks to indicate speech vs. thought / narrative. ( Does this author believe she is James Joyce? ) Secondly I really did not want to know what 80+ year-old Marlene Dietrich's poop looks like. Knowing that her chamber pot holds a crescent shaped deposit is an image I do not need in my head. To be continued...…… I am having more problems with the author's choices about "facts" to include in the narrative. In 1961 Marlene slept with John Kennedy in the White House. We all know that he was a womanizer, so the idea of their liaison is not shocking to me, but do we need to know that she allowed him to skip wearing a condom and then douched with vinegar to prevent pregnancy. As a "child of the sixties", I do not think of myself as a prude. I was not shocked by the illicit sex, but found the additional information to be unnecessary. If the author is added these details to be titillating, she is failing. In addition Marlene establishes a sexual relationship with Anna Mae Wong which also does not bother me in any way. I do not need to hear, however, that Marlene licked her finger before stimulating her partner. This author seems to be an exhibitionist. I find these unnecessary and vulgar additions to be offensive. To be continued..... OK, I am reading again. We learn about Ann May Wong beginning around the time of the photograph in 1928. We learn the story of a Jewish journalist who interviews her in Berlin. We go off on his story line. WHY????? Then the narrative begins to follow the story line of Leni Riefenstahl. We have finally gotten over the obsession with stools, douches, finger-licking, and other bodily functions. Au contraire…. Suddenly on page 106 we have to learn that Leni has a UTI and that her urine is bloody, thick and foul smelling. Someone please tell me how this enhances the fictional biography????? So we move forward with Leni. My assumption ( foolish person, never assume) was that we would begin with her early work shortly after the photograph. As I read I realized that the war had begun and the year was 1939 to 1940 - deduced by references to battles in North Africa and to "Gone with the Wind" and "Destry Rides Again" with Marlene - both made in 1939. What happened to the 10 missing years? Riefenstahl's most important film, "Triumph of The Will" was made in 1935. This documentary of the Nuremberg rally is probably still the most effective propaganda film ever made. This is not important to the story line? Again on page 125 we learn that production of her current film has been delayed because of those recurring UTI symptoms.... "Triumph" does not merit a page, but the UTI's do??? So we move forward?? with Leni... She visits Goebbels to get money for her latest production which is continuing to be delayed because of her "bladder colic". The date is still close to 1939 - 1940. Now we have the stage hands Haas & Schmitz ( just wait ).. We then without indication of time we jump back to 1924 and 1926 (we only know by film references ). Leni meets with Hitler in 1932.. Then we are back to war time - we only know this because of a quote ( no quotation marks remember ) "When we took the Netherlands...." Then Leni is filming "Tiefland" ( filming ran from 1940 - 1944 ). We only know this because of a dead wolf - yes, a dead wolf. ( The film was not completed before WWII ended and was released after 1954 when it was decided that Leni was an "innocent" and not a Nazi.... ) Next page it is 1945 and the Leipzig zoo is being bombed. Twenty-one years with no logic, chronology, or help with identification of time... Whew!! The next section is titled "Josef von Sternberg Pays a Visit to a Zen Buddhist Mental Asylum in Kyoto". I know, I didn't understand the heading or the story line either, but I was ready to go back to Kyoto ( a truly beautiful city ) and find said asylum.... He does not merit the pages devoted to him. We have Von Sternberg only because he "discovered" Marlene and is directing "Shanghai Express". The narrative concerns time in or shortly before 1932. Both Anna and Marlene are in the film. The remaining pages of the chapter seem to stay in this time frame and keep the content devoted to two of the three main characters of the book. Next chapter: "The Collection Camp for Nonsedentary Persons of Roma and Sinti Descent in Bucolic Salzburg". ( The Sinti are a Romani people of Central Europe. ) ( I explain this fact since Ms. Koe does not. ) "Even Leni could not recall the original deadline for " Tiefland"… her bladder colic was a blessing in disguise." Groan!! In 1940 she needs extras for the film and discovers a cheap source, the "holding camp" for nomadic Roma and Sinti people. They are a little thin, but you could just add more clothes. So much for Leni's lack of knowledge of camps. Remember Haas and Schmitz?? We are now with them in the Libyan desert. The year is unknown - the desert campaign ran from 1940 to 1943. Your guess is as good as mine. As we well know women were scarce in the desert, so we hear about the men masturbating - fine. Haas and Schmitz have a homosexual encounter. Also fine, but I did not need to know the excrement on the penis detail. Why do I keep reading this book??? To be continued... Schmitz is killed in the desert beside Haas. Back at filming "Tiefland" Leni has required a new wolf. We are in 1939 / 1940. One page later and it is 1938. Leni is sent to the U.S. by Goebbels to attempt to build film agreements for German productions. Hopes are high because "Olympia" her film/s about the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin is successful. During her U. S. tour Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass November 9/10 happens and all appointments are cancelled except for one with Walt Disney. Disney??? Yes, true.. Leni is back in New York at a MoMA for a screening of "Triumph of the Will". I thought she was in LA. The only documentation I could find concerning MoMA and the film was as follows: "The Museum of Modern Art’s film curator Iris Barry acquired a print from the Reichsfilmarchiv during her 1936 tour of Europe. Adding Riefenstahl’s Triumph to MoMA’s new film library, Barry included an excerpt in a documentary program at Washington’s Mayflower Hotel in May 1936, shown to an audience of dignitaries that included Supreme Court justices, cabinet members, and congressmen. Another print seemed to have circulated in members-only screenings sponsored by the German-American Bund; in July 1939, there was at least one theatrical screening at the 96th Street Theatre in Manhattan’s heavily German neighborhood, Yorkville." The MoMA site does not document the screening. Charlie Chaplin was supposedly laughing in the audience. Chaplin's biography states that he saw the film in 1935 and used it as a basis for his amazing film satire "The Great Dictator". Are you confused yet?? I am. Next we are back filming "Tiefland" in 1940. Haas is back, Schiltz is dead. How did Haas get back to the movie set from North Africa?? I don't think the Africa Corps let soldiers wander back and forth to make films... Why do we care?? Filming is based in the Dolomites in northern Italy according to the book. Leni is finished with her Romani extras and sends them back to the camp. The Romani extras were from Maxglan – Leopoldskron near Salsberg. The distance from the Dolomites to Salzberg is about 200 miles, yet according to the book the drive back to the camp took 2 hours. (Pretty good time for WWII in a truck ). When the internees beg Leni for help, she pops 2 methadone for her bladder colic..... Haas has to guard the hostages - he later hangs himself. One less extraneous and unnecessary character gone. Next chapter, Marlene is 90; she died in Paris in 1992 at age 90. The book states that her beau Yul Brynner died 4 years earlier. Brynner died in 1985. That would mean the scene is in 1989 - Marlene is not 90. "foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds - Ralph Waldo Emerson". She is being phone stalked by Ibrahim Max Muller. Apparently this is pure fiction. An author's prerogative, but why? Only 140 more pages to go... So off we go on another boondoggle. Ibrahim decides to remove the sign "Arbeit Mach Frei " from Sachenhausen concentration camp. He is arrested, and confined for months because he has no money to pay fines for the damage he causes. When he gets out he takes a train to Hamburg, a ferry to Manchester, England, ( goes clubbing ) and takes a ferry to Paris. Where, pray tell, is he getting the money for travel when he has no money to pay his fines or to buy food and is grateful when a person gives him a pat of butter??? "I know, foolish consistency...." He finally gets a job at a bar, David Bowie comes in, someone in the group dares Ibrahim to call Marlene, hence the phone stalker... ( Are you kidding me? Really? David Bowie??? Where are the Beatles in this benighted story?? ) He meets Marlene's Chinese cleaner and they "date". In what language are they communicating?? In one paragraph they are philosophizing; in another they cannot speak simple sentences to each other. Novelist prerogative to be inconsistent???? Why does this story line exist at all??? Do we care? Chapter: An Urgent Task for Top Scientists at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin. This chapter seems to be a direct summary from "Sandra Maischberger trifft Leni Riefenstahl" - a "documentary" disguised as a sympathetic interview with Leni that was done in 2002 when she was over 100. There are no source citations, but I have seen the movie and if this chapter is not "lifted" from that film, I'll eat the book. The only part of the "interview" that did not ring true was that Leni supposedly says the last time she met Hitler his purpose was to have German scientist work on movie film that would not decompose. ( Hence the chapter title.) Page 287 - Leni "says" she met Hitler "Toward the end of the war..... I was in Kitzbuhel with bladder colic... " Damn!! Persistent little devil that bladder colic!! Actually the last time Leni met with Hitler was on March 21, 1944 for the occasion of her marriage to Peter Jacob. Page 288 - Leni says she last met Hitler "In the middle of the war (!!!) I could not believe that was what he was asking of me." This book is not even consistent in making up / documenting an interview from one page to the next. Only 95 pages left.... Finally, the one good chapter in the book: Marlon Brando lays an egg. We return to Anna May's story. There is an episode with Marlene in Las Vegas that rings true. Anna May visits China where she is accused of "selling out" to Hollywood and not portraying Chinese people in a good light. I especially liked the story line about an old Chinese belief about cameras. I visited the New Territories in 1967. ( The New Territories was one of the three main regions of Hong Kong, alongside Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula. It made up 86.2% of Hong Kong's territory and bordered Communist China.) We visited the ancient walled city of Kat Hing Wai. (It dates back some 500 years to the early clan settlers of the Ming dynasty. Home to traditional Hakka people, it offers an unparalleled glimpse into their intriguing past. ) The reason I mention this is that we were not allowed to take photographs because the women believed that camera images stole part of their souls. This story is told by Anna May as a family myth in her old village. Anna dies young ( at age 56 ). She never became the star she could have been. All the pictures of her and the history of rejection ( e. g. for the starring role in "The Good Earth") stole her soul. Great chapter! I have hope!!! It is as though different writer has taken up the story.... Alas, the bodily function obsessed author returns - Marlene is wearing maxi pads for urine and hiding them under the bed. She recalls her USO tours during WWII; we have to be informed that her vinegar douche set gets lots of use.. One last horrible boondoggle. Ibrahim and BeBe are back. He takes her to the Baltic sea where East and West Germany meet. He finds his mother's grave has been emptied and she has been cremated because he did not pay for the maintenance . He climbs the dividing barrier and is shot by the East Germans. BeBe is deported to China where she searches out a KFC in Beijing. We know it is 1989 because she muses that the Tiananmen Square Massacre could not have happened because it is so peaceful in Beijing and Mao looks so benign. Again I ask, WHY?? I don't give a rat's patootie about Ibrahim and BeBe. They only add confusion to the story about Marlene, Anna May, and Leni. Is KFC supposed to have some great symbolic meaning? The side story is just unnecessary clutter... Meanwhile back at Marlene, the book ends as she has a paranoid, mystical experience as she watches the Berlin wall come down. Finally, I am out of my misery. **** This is a first novel - it shows. I blame the editors at Doubleday as much as I blame the author. This could have been an interesting, coherent novel with appropriate guidance. Instead it is a book obsessed with stools, vinegar douches, smelly urine, bladder colic and other bodily functions. There are 4 side stories which contribute nothing but pages to the book. They should have been removed editorially. Jumps in time frame are not explained. Instead they must be researched by the reader if you care to make sense of the book. The premise had great potential which was completely wasted. As an historian I found the lack of respect for verisimilitude reprehensible. Run, do not walk, away from this book. Kristi & Abby Tabby

[Clement · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before reviewing Amanda Lee Koe's actual writing it must be noted that the Doubleday hardcover edition of Delayed Rays Of A Star is physically a work of art in bookmaking.  The dust jacket features some beautiful design work by a Michael J. Windsor that perfectly incorporates design aesthetics of the classical Hollywood era and contemporary typography.  The interior of the book also features the same careful attention to aesthetic detail from numbering Anna May Wong's chapters with Chinese letters to choosing appropriate Hollywood-esque fonts to even designing small individualized emblems that serve sort of as a historatied initial to signify and designate each of the three main character's chapters.  The effort put into assembling the physical copy of this novel is marvelous and serves as an excellent reminder that, as much as I appreciate the convenience of e-readers, there's nothing like holding a physically beautiful book.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t, at first, nearly as enthralled by Amanda Lee Koe's actual writing.  The pitch for Delayed Rays of A Star's plot reads like something I would absolutely love considering I have a degree in Film Studies and am an Taiwanese American.  A historical fiction novel written by an Asian author about two classic Hollywood actresses, one of whom is Chinese and has to struggle against racism, and a famously controversial film director sounded like everything I wanted in book; unfortunately, I nearly gave up on Delayed Rays of A Star after the first few chapters. One immediate reason is that there simply wasn’t enough of the narrative actually concerned about film or film history until Leni Riefenstahl’s first chapter. After that, the narrative picked up and began actually delving into interesting historical tidbits of film history surrounded its three protagonists instead of over-detailing Marlene Dietrich’s sexual exploits.

Another reason is a common problem with most novels that deal with multiple main protagonists. It is easy to be more interested in one protagonists over the others. In the case of Delayed Rays of A Star, I struggled through the first two Marlene Dietrich chapters.  If it weren't for the story of the Chinese immigrant housemaid character intertwined into the narrative, I would have dropped the book before reaching Anna May Wong's first chapter. As a side note, Amanda Lee Koe’s treatment of the issue of human trafficking in Dietrich’s chapters was oddly subdued which also slightly bothered me. The chapters were well written and, writing from the perspective of an aged Dietrich was a great choice but, unnecessary and misplaced sex scenes littered her early chapters and the latter chapters were just a bit slow. It’s not even that the sex scene weren’t well written, they just felt misplaced. Perhaps I just disliked Koe’s depiction of Dietrich considering that Koe has actually been complimented on her ability to write sex scenes well in an interview that she gave where she actually speaks of how Marlene Dietrich's sexuality brought her freedom in expressing and writing of her own sexuality. Koe’s speaking in that article says, “Sex in fiction is a powerful, liminal space because of the fact that we can simultaneously convey the interiority of characters while they are in a state of physical ecstasy. How cool would it be it during sex you could have a USB cable into your partner’s brain, see what someone is seeing when they reach a point at which thought is impossible and sensation is heightened? A writer should make sparing but full use of this medium-specific privilege that exists only on the page (films don’t afford the same interiority).” In the case of Delayed Rays of A Star, Koe has definitely made full use of the medium-specific privilege of writing visceral sex scenes but, her own advice on the use of it sparingly, arguably, hasn’t been heeded. Dietrich's sexual exploits are well recorded in the annals of film history but, what we end up with in Delayed Rays of A Star is a caricature instead of a fully developed character, and ultimately a missed opportunity to explore deeper into the person of Marlene Dietrich. The irony, of course is that just as Hollywood typecast Dietrich as a femme fatale, Amanda Lee Koe, with Dietrich, reduced her to being defined by the sole attributes of being a sexual predator, megalomaniac, and a nymphomaniac. Thankfully, Koe does better with Anna May Wong’s character and significantly better with Leni Riefenstahl.

All of Anna May Wong's chapters and Leni Riefenstahl's chapters, for me personally, were considerably better and more interesting then the Marlene Dietrich's chapters. Riefenstahl’s chapters read in the way I expected the whole novel to read and were the highlight of the novel, despite their perhaps revisionist history. The Riefenstahl chapters were a perfect mix of film history, technical film elements, the struggles of being a female director, the complexities of filmmaking in Nazi Germany and etc… Her chapters made the novel a worthwhile read and I’m glad I stuck with the novel for her chapters, especially her final first-person chapter, the only first-person chapter in the whole book.

With that all said, Delayed Rays of A Star is an impressive debut and demonstrates that Amanda Lee Koe clearly has a firm grasp on the technical aspects of writing and storytelling necessary to be an incredible author. She has also definitely done her research and knows her film history. I was surprised even to see one of my favorite directors Hou Hsiao-Hsien get a nod in the novel for his film Daughter Of The Nile. She is most definitely an author to watch and I will definitely keep an eye out for her future works. Delayed Rays of Star missed the mark a little bit at the beginning but, ultimately it grew to be an interesting worthwhile read that I’m glad I stuck with until the end.

I debated between giving this a 3 or a 4 for a long time. I ultimately settled on a 3 but, really it's a 3.5, and would be a 4 for another reader.

*I received this book as part of a Goodreads giveaway and thank Doubleday for the advanced copy.

[Ксеня Шпак · Rating 4 out of 5]

Змішані почуття, думок викликає багато. Почнім з того, що частково ця історія була для мене освітньою. Про одну з головних героїнь - акторку Анну-Мей Вонг, я не знала нічого, а також не знала, що той дурнуватий "моральний кодекс" Голлівуду, що забороняв міжрасові поцілунки на екрані, дозволяв прикидатися комусь з білих людиною іншої раси, тобто якщо на екрані нам показують якусь китаянку, яку грає біла, то цьомчик між персонажами - це нормально, а якщо китаянку грає власне китаянка, то ніззя. Орвелівщина якась.
Також пізнавально було почитати, як Лені Ріфеншталь взяла для зйомок масовки у фільмі ромів з концентраційних таборів, а потім повернула їх назад. Щоправда, я гуглила, чи це правда, бо авторка дуже сміливо розписала нам любовну лінію між Анною-Мей Вонг і Марлен Дітріх, яка не спирається на задокументовані факти (наскільки я нагуглила). Це мене трохи дивувало, адже ні переписки ��их акторок нема, нічого, окрім сексуальної напруги в кадрі фільму "Шанхайський експрес". Мене дещо дивують (у поганому сенсі) сміливі автори, які дуже вільно й рішуче фантазують на тему біографій реальних осіб.
Цікаво було читати, втім, про тисячу відтінків расизму навколо Анни-Мей Вонг: їй відмовляють у головних ролях, вона завжди грає лиходійок, водночас у Китаї засирають кожен її пчих, і один пан каже їй, що вона й сама рада експлуатувати стереотипи для своєї вигоди. Складається враження, що їй не виплутатися з цих тенет і просто неможливо бути лише собою.
Не менше зачепило й зображення Лені Ріфеншталь, в яку повірив Гітлер, хоча вона й жінка. Розумієш, чим її підкупало його ставлення, однак водночас неможливо не горіти з неї повсякчас, бо вона представниця "мистецтва поза політикою". Втім, я зчитала тут думку, що мистецтво НЕ поза політикою (але тут як з "Лолітою": авторка не прогорює це чітко, тож завжди можна прочитати жопою зовсім інше, я думаю, якась російська лібералка прочитала б цю лінію виправдовувально для себе).
Було кілька образів "хороших німців", без епізоду з директором Ляйпцизького зоопарку взагалі можна було б прекрасно обійтися.
Наскільки авторці було важко лишатися безсторонньою і показати різні грані, мені важко сказати. Певно, величезна відстань між Другою світовою і сьогоденням західного світу цілком робить це можливим, а то й не аж таким складним.
ПС. Кончене форматування тексту, де діалоги нічим не відокремлені від загального тексту (в англомовних відгуках теж на це скаржаться, тож це така авторська задумка).

[Marta Tatusko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Я очікувала легенького романчику про кіно, акторів, вечірки, але він не такий. Не зачаровуйтесь обкладинкою. Було важко, але вартувало того. Вартувало роздумувати над кожною долею, проникатись нею, сплітатись з нею…


«Бо не існує цивілізації, процитував він напівзабуту німецьку сентенцію, чия б історія не була водночас історією варварства»

«… коли ти оригінал, то і змагатися можеш тільки з самим собою»

[Ruby · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is a modern masterpiece. pls run, not walk, to get your copy. it is about three film icons (dietrich, wong, and liefenstahl) but I think the true gems in this book are the unknown stories of the “supporting cast” whose lives are marked by the three stars. the prose is dense but never clunky. This is an intricate and intelligent novel, definitely the best one I’ve read this year.

[Melanie Schneider · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ich woltle es mögen. Aber zu viel Nationalsozialismus, der mir zu verträumt herüberkommt, zu viele racial slurs, zu viel drama porn. Es ist leider überhaupt nicht meins.

[Yong Feng · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delayed Rays of a Star begins and ends with a photograph of three actresses at a party in Berlin in 1928: Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong and Leni Riefenstahl. Ambitious in its scope and its attempt to render these famous personalities of the early 20th century into relatable and flawed humans, the novel moves back and forth between these three characters as they each make their marks as independent women in a male-dominated film industry, and also wrestle with their respective demons: Dietrich being labeled a traitor for renouncing her German citizenship to go to Hollywood during WWII; Wong’s predicament of being offered only roles that were stereotypes of Asian women yet also being deemed “too Chinese to play a Chinese” when auditioning for the one Hollywood film with an Asian lead; Riefenstahl’s close relationship with the Nazis leading to attacks on her and her work after the war. I confess I did not know about any of them before reading the book, but was inspired to watch Shanghai Express after finishing it and appreciated the scenes that Koe so lovingly describes, as well as the butterfly lighting that made Marlene look like “she’d been dusted in gold foil.”

I loved Koe’s earlier collection Ministry of Moral Panic for its inventive twists on the people of the Singaporean heartland, and the minor characters here showcase her skill: Bébé, a Chinese immigrant who serves as Dietrich’s housekeeper as she lives out her last years; Ibrahim, a poetry-loving Turkish German who forms a bond with Bébé, and Hans Haas, the best boy on Riefenstahl’s crew for Tiefland who struggles with finding his own voice. The cast becomes a little crowded with the added cameos of Walter Benjamin, JFK, Marlon Brando and Hitler among others. I felt that the large ensemble of characters prevented me from deeply identifying with any one of them too closely. However, each character and the events they feature in are carefully crafted and sequenced in a complex web of space and time that illustrates the conflicting ideas and tensions each individual faces, juxtaposed against the march of history.

If there is one common thread that runs through the book, it is how we construct and edit the images and identities that we choose to see, and that are projected to the world. As Anna May says in response to a Chinese critic, “An actress’ authenticity is not in her life, it is in her performance.” This is most memorable in how Leni’s devotion to her artistic vision while filming Tiefland is also a way of survival by ignoring the atrocities of the Nazi death camps nearby: “she could not show that troubled face to the crew…if one person broke down to ask why they were making an alpine movie about a shepherd and a dancer when the world around them had gone mad, everything would turn to dust—they would all be back in the city, queueing for rations and cowering in bunkers. That must not happen.” Koe paints everyone in believable shades of grey, such that a reader could empathise with even Riefenstahl (who directed two of the most effective Nazi propaganda films ever made).

The title of the book is taken from a passage from Barthes’ “Camera Lucida”: “the photograph of the missing being, as Sontag says, will touch me like the delayed rays of a star.” Just like how the characters calibrate their images to transcend their realities and regain their agency, so does Koe revise and embellish history, shaping the rays of these bygone luminaries of film so that they continue to ask questions that still resonate today.

[Ming · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very creative imagining of Marlene and Anna. The tone and feel of Anna's and Marlene's chapters sounded very similar; they had an ironic (firmly sarcastic) and/or cynical/skeptical feel. The portion about Leni was interesting but almost unnecessary, since her path barely crosses Marlene's a second time.

In addition, some sections told additional stories from peripheral characters, e.g., a maid, a film-stage lighting apprentice, a fan. I'm not quite sure why they were included and what value they added.

If some Rashomon structure was the goal, it wasn't needed since each character basically told the same story just from a different viewpoint. In Rashomon, each viewpoint told a different story of a "shared" event.

Aside from the beginning scene where all three main characters meet, the book lacks a unifying element. There are three main stories and a few minor ones between two covers.

I thought Anna's story was the most affecting. The ache of her struggles in a racist system/society were poignant and well crafted by Koe. I also appreciated that Koe never hyphenated "Asian American."

Koe importantly and unapologetically used French, German and Chinese written phrases at times and not once provided a translation or "supportive or facilitating" context clues. This radical approach is as jarring as it is a simple and profound statement: it centers the character or subject and her/his/its voice (rather than the reader's need/s).

Some favorite quotes:

...Their household practiced ancestral worship, but they also went to the Chinese Baptist church on Sundays. Growing up this way, Anna May had accepted the harmony of believing in both until she was old enough to notice, one day, at random, how incompatible they were. Her mother's unimpeachable logic shushed her up: The more spirits the merrier....

...Her Californian cadence was so strong he had to strain to catch the flattened words.

...The German press gave Marlene a hard time for becoming American without realizing, Jo thought, that as with everything else she did in her life, she played it both ways: she looked as good in a skirt as she did in trousers, she was married but philandered without concealment or deception, she was not a simple opportunist in her career but she was game to try everything once. By their very nature decisions tended toward narrowing life's possibilities, but Marlene had a knack of making decisions that opened rather than closed, shrugging labels off they were like fleas.

Her apartment she decorated not just to her tastes, but to how she imagined the apartment of an actress out to be. With care she considered the tone and shape of each thing she put around herself. The apartment had to be modern, individualistic, contrarian. Far Eastern garnishes littered her household with careless precision, to be read by the right people ironically and by the wrong people literally. Bold abstract artwork on the walls, bonsai in porcelain troughs, traditional calligraphy scrolls whose words she could not fathom. Home was a blank slate she could fill in with how she wanted herself to be. The last thing she wanted was to look down on her family as she learned to like herself, but was there any other way out of the odd-angled corner she'd backed into? The setup was painful in its clarity: either she disappointed them, or she disappointed herself.

...What Anna May loved about acting was the craft. Even after all these years, to have a fresh script in hand an a new character's skin to get under get her a thrill, no matter how few lines she had or how disproportionate her salary was compared with everyone else's on the credit roll. The process of living truthfully under imaginary circumstances was what she was addicted to. Could a bad actress suffer as much as a good one?

But now, finally, in a place where everyone was said to be the same as she, she was more out of place than ever. She had nothing in common with them but the color of their skin. It was exactly the same difference here: still they heckled her and called her names. The problem was neither L.A. nor Shanghai, she thought. The problem has always been me.

[Maine Colonial · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amanda Lee Koe’s inspiration for this ambitious novel was a single photograph, taken by famed photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt at a party in Berlin in 1928. The picture is of filmmaker/actress Leni Riefenstahl, Hollywood actress Anna May Wong, and Marlene Dietrich. Koe takes us to this party and uses that as her jumping-off point for stories that read like memoirs from each woman’s point of view.

To get into the head of each woman is fascinating. Anna May Wong, growing up in Los Angeles was enthralled with the movies. While she became a successful actress, Hollywood cast her in villain roles, while sympathetic Asian characters were played by Caucasians in whiteface. Wong had to deal with that as well as scathing reviews from critics in her parents’ native China.

Dietrich’s story is focused two bookends of her life; her early days working with Josef von Sternberg and having an affair with Wong, and the last years of her life, when she was bedridden and reclusive in a Paris flat. (I don’t know if there’s any factual basis for the affair.) Dietrich is portrayed as a women who yearned for connection but couldn’t let down her barriers enough to form a real relationship with anyone.

Riefenstahl is portrayed both in her filmmaking years in Germany’s Third Reich, and much later in life, looking back and defending herself against charges of collaboration with the Nazi regime. Koe does a terrific job getting inside the head of the ambitious and self-absorbed Riefenstahl, who has an excuse or justification for everything. She never has to admit her culpability—even to herself.

Some of the most affecting scenes involve side characters whom Koe introduces into the story. There is the World War I veteran working as a gaffer on one of Riefenstahl’s who is haunted by his wartime memories and stricken by Riefenstahl’s use of Roma from a nearby Nazi concentration camp as film extras. Then there is Dietrich’s refugee Chinese house cleaner, Bébé, who develops a relationship with a young Turkish-German admirer of Dietrich’s.

It’s hard to describe this novel. It has a certain dreamlike quality, but not because it feels like a dream. It’s more as if you have all the time in the world to sit with these women as they tell you the stories of their lives, and you know that because they are human there will be truth, lies, happiness, sadness, and the bittersweetness of memory.

[Enotka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Я давно казала - не люблю дуже товстих книжок. Цю сміливо можна було робити на чверть коротшою ;)
Але з іншого боку, я не уявляю, як всі ці історії можна було вмістити на 200 сторінках)

"Світло далекої зірки" - це історії переплетених доль трьох зірок свого часу. Одіозна режисерка Лені Ріфеншталь, справжня зірка Марлен Дітріх і східна недооцінена акторка Анна-Мей Вонг. Це історії їх зустрічей, суперництва, любові, сходжень і падінь, і старіння.
В ��низі дуже багато про те, що стає з зірками, коли вони ховаються за небосхил. І це те, про що ми, скоріше за все, ніколи не замилюємося, засліплені їх сяйвом.

А ще, дуже багато на подумати про мистецтво поза політикою. І кілька немовірно страшних епізодів часів війни. Про ромів, яких привезли з концтабору на зйомки у фільмі протеже Гітлера. Про бомбардування берлінського зоопарку...

Коротше, це товста, доволі непроста, але страшенно захоплююча книжка. Як серіал "Корона" - читаєш і думаєш, а чи це було насправді?

[Karolina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've hesitated for a long time - should I give it four stars? three? Let's assume it's 3.75.

I really like Amanda's writing, although I feel that the best parts were fictional. Usually I'm all up for experiments, jumping through time and mixing up threads, but somehow the result in "Delayed Rays of Star" seemed a bit chaotic at times. But! I am a huge fan of Amanda's work and so I am really glad I could read that and get (even if for a moment) into the world that fascinates the author herself.

[Jacob Wren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't believe how much I loved this book.

[Olena Brazhnyk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Книжка дуже довго читалась і часом не хотілось до неї повертатись, та коли знову взялась, то вже не відпускала) Остання частина найбільше відгукнулась й можливо за неї поставила б книзі 5 зірок

[James Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The concept of Delayed Rays of a Star is imaginative. The novel takes off, like light thrown into time and space by a single source, from an actual event, a soiree in 1928 Berlin in which the chance attendance of actress Marlene Dietrich, filmmaker Leni Riestenstahl, and the Chinese American film star Anna May Wong was recorded by Alfred Eisenstaedt's portraits of the 3 together, included in the paper edition. The novel's arc traces the careers of the 3 women from that moment to the end of the century. What links them is film. Also, very subtly, what they share is lives deeply impacted by the politics and culture of the 20th century, cleverly wrung by Koe from their actual biographies. Riestenstahl became close to the Nazi leadership of Germany as they used her to make propaganda films. Wong and Dietrich struggled with the politics of Hollywood. Koe makes Dietrich the agent through which the cultural and political movements at the end of the century reach affirmation. She watches and approves as the Berlin wall falls symbolizing the end of the Soviet Union while in Beijing Chairman Mao's huge portrait competes with the newly-arrived image of KFC's Colonel Sanders. Earlier in the novel Riestenstahl's assistants had helped her in using light to tell a story. In the novel's end Koe uses light as apotheosis or death, or both.

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Delayed Rays of a Star presents the story of three actresses captured in one photo in Berlin, prior to WW2. Anna May Wong, a Chinese American actress in Europe looking for more prominent roles not available to her in Hollywood, Leni Riefenstahl, a German actress who would become Hilter's director of his propaganda films, and Marlene Dietrich, German actress and Hollywood legend.

I was very excited to read this book; and the portrayals of the three women were fairly accurate, per the historical record. Anna May, a Chinese-American, born in LA who was a breakthrough actress, but not "Chinese enough" for Hollywood standards. She returns to China, and realizes she also does not belong in China. Her story was an interesting look at immigrants trying to assimilate into American culture, and how cultural norms in her own country were violated. She donated much money to the Chinese war effort against the Japanese, but the Chinese people felt she violated her culture by succumbing to Hollywood stereotypes.

Leni, a Hitler supporter who was considered a brilliant director. Her support of the Nazi Party (which she subsequently denied until her death) led to her being shunned from theater work for the remainder of her life. One section, in which she gives an interview, the reader can see how she continued to rewrite her life's narrative, to make her seem less horrific than the crimes she is accused of.

Marlene.... What can one say of the icon. Her support of the Allies during WW2 led to a sense of betrayal and animosity on the part of her native Germans. She was forward, brash, but one has to admire a woman who stood by her convictions and never apologized for her actions.

The 2 star rating comes from the spin off stories, which I think the author was trying to correlate back to the historical account. The book jumped not only from person to person but from past to present and was often difficult to follow. There were also some words that were not edited properly and some paragraph phrasing I felt didn't flow properly, making the book a bit difficult to read.

The horrors of the Holocaust, the general complacence of the average German, is perhaps the most horrific part of modern history. I struggled to draw the correlation I feel the author was trying to make.

I received this book as part of a Goodreads giveaway and would like to thank Doubleday for the advanced copy.

[Jee Koh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the few novels by Singaporeans that I did not feel was a duty to read, but a real pleasure. I admire the ambition, not only in its range of characters, settings, times, and scenes, but also in its daring depiction of such well-known historical personages such as Hitler, Goebbels, and Walter Benjamin (in addition to the three female stars). It could have fallen on its face, but it did not; it throbs with life. The self-awareness invested in Benjamin, in particular, is Shakespearean. If the prologue about the Berlin Press Ball, which brings together the three female protagonists, feels stagey, the reader lives the last days of Benjamin with him as in a dramatic monologue. The novel does own non-fatal weaknesses. The slight over-deliberateness in the construction and juxtaposition of scenes. The occasional flamboyance in the language, including distracting puns and wordplay. The chapter titles are coquettish, and in one case misleading (Marlon Brando is brandished but does not really enter the story), but perhaps that is the way of the coquette. Like its film stars, the novel wants so much to be loved, and everywhere is conscious of the perils and patrimony of that desire. There is just a little too much of Marlene's piss and stools, for my taste, although the relationship between the aging star and her young Chinese maid is depicted with the keen sympathy that already illuminated her short story "Alice, You Must Be the Fulcrum of Your Own Universe," the best story of her first book Ministry of Moral Panic. The battle scene in the Leni Reifenstahl section is somewhat thin, but Reifenstahl herself is a complex creation, thrown into sharp relief by the sweetness of the soldier and best boy Hans Haas. Anna May Wong is a little too passive, too much of a screen for others' projections, in Lee Koe's novel, but the passivity sets the reader up for the wonderful final confrontation between her and the Chinese film critic, in which the old idea of art's supremacy over politics is burnished anew. I do not believe that Bogie would kill himself the way he did, but Bebe's return to China is the experience of alienated longing that every immigrant feels upon returning home. "If you went around the world and ended up back in the same spot you started from, is that the same as never having left in the first place?" The novel is a resounding answer to its own question.

[Shane W. · Rating 5 out of 5]

First time that I heard about this book, I was visiting London for the first time. I went to the legendary lgbt bookshop Gay’s The Word and I has an interesting chat with an owner. I was searching for a specific book about Marlene Dietrich and some other Hollywood actresses, I believe it was called “The Girls” and it is about the revolutionary way of their gender expression and their sexuality being a groundbreaking phenomenon during their times. Unfortunately, it was not available but the owner went on about a fascinating book that was about to be published then. He described Amanda Lee Koe as a debuting future award-winning writer with a huge potential. The man told me that the book was a novel where Marlene Dietrich was one of the characters. I was bedazzled. I decided I have to read it as soon as it will be available. A minute I went out of the store, I forgot the author and the title. I was trying to recall it, halfway to the metro station, I realized I completely lost it. I asked my best friend who was with me if we could get back just for this title. We were late, we could mot do it. I was mad. I tried hard to find it somewhere by writing various phrases in the browser. Nothing.
Recently, I was watching a Facebook story of an independent bookstore selling Asian books in Poland. I recognized the book I was looking for for almost two years. I ordered it immediately and read it as soon as it arrived.
It was more than worth it.

The book is a novel divided into three main storylines where we have three different leading characters - Marlene Dietrich, Leni Riefenstahl and Anna May. Later on, the author adds few other people but they are not as important for the book.
This book has literally no weak point except it is too short.
The way Koe writes given that she was a debutant then is unbelievable. I flew through this book stopping myself on purpose to make it last longer.
When we have Dietrich’s perspective it really corresponds with the biographical bits we know about that legendary German actress. It was also a delight when I could recall place I know from the times I lived in Berlin
When writing from Riefenstahl’s perspective - a director who was being sponsored by Hitler to do her films - I think that Koe did a marvelous work presenting her thinking through her actions and thoughts, not through describing it.
One of the best books I have ever read if not really the best one. Waiting for her other works.

[Chitra Ahanthem · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is historical fiction at its best with a real life photo of the enigmatic star Marlene Dietrich, the exotic Anna May Wong and an almost haughty Leni Riefenstahl taken at a party in Berlin in 1928 being the opening. The book follows the three pioneering divas: Marlene, a star who refused to be boxed in any category in terms of her sexual choices or her professional career choices; Anna Wong who is expected to play just two stereotypical Chinese tropes (the evil woman and the sacrificing Chinese woman) in Hollywood films and film director Leni Riefenstahl whose technical expertise in film making was overshadowed by her association and public praise of Hitler.

This is an ode to the craft of film making: its creative beauty and the struggles it entails, the politics and the star system, the stereotypes that cinema enforces and maintains, creative partnerships and studio decisions, the disdain and dispensability of actors after a certain age- all of this juxtaposed in the backdrop of the politically fraught era of the prelude to the rise of Hitler, the Second World War, the racial segregations that played out on screen where actors belonging to different races could not be portrayed having romantic or intimate relations.

I totally loved the way the narrative went back and forth in time and brought in fictional characters integral to the politics of the book: a maid and housekeeper who looks after Dietrich, someone who is a victim of sex trafficking and who gets refugee status later but who continues to face racial discrimination and token charity job hand outs and the man who comes into her life.

I would say, read this if you love historical fiction. Read it if you love films. Read it for the strong women who take life on the shins. Brilliant!

[Inessakos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Жанр: художня біографія
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Три зірки кінематографу: Марлен Дітріх, Анна-Мей Вонг та Лені Ріфеншталь.
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А ще колишній військовий, нелегальна повія-мігрантка та відбувший ув'язнення студент.
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Такі різні життя, які переплітаються на сторінках книги, складані в єдину картину ХХ століття: Німеччина, Голівуд, війна, мистецтво...
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Вирішила читати книгу через Марлен Дітріх, бо завжди викликала цікавість ця німкеня, яка відправила свій паспорт в рідну країну і повстала проти нацизму, ставши американським символом свободи. Ще й крутила шури-мури з Ремарком, після чого автор написав оду їх відносинам — роман "Триумфальна арка".
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Але в цій книзі вразила мене не яскрава Марлен, а Анна-Мей Вонг — американка китайського походження, яка подолала складний шлях від пральні до великого кіно, все життя перебуваючи в боротьбі з расовими утисками та стереотипами.
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Вперше повністю усвідомила той факт, що лише у 1948 р. в Америці були зняті заборони на міжрасові шлюби. І тому реально вражає, що в таких складних умовах Мей Вонг все ж змогла стати зіркою Голлівуду.
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І саме заради Анни-Мей Вонг вирішила подивитися "Шанхайський експрес", де вона знялася разом з Марлен Дітрих: обидві акторки були на висоті.
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А ось Лені Ріфеншталь мені не сподобалася... Але, думаю, вона в цілому мало кому подобалася навіть за життя, бо занадто велика тінь падала на її нібито аполітичне мистецтво.
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Хороший дебют вийшов у Аманди Лі Коу, тим паче у такому складному, вважаю, жанрі. Хоч усі видумані персонажі мені не дуже сподобалися, зате три голлівудські зірки сяяли на сторінках напрочуд реалістично.

[Jennifer Cutler · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a very difficult time getting into the story. Perhaps because there was no "story." Instead, Koe took a famous, but situational, photograph and tried to weave together the lives of the three subjects. Yes, Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong, and Leni Riefenstah crossed paths on more than one occasion but there wasn't much to tell about their interconnected lives. Each woman had a colorful life on her own and only peripherally had contact with the others. To turn out a book from one photograph, Koe delved further into tangential characters, but even those storylines fell flat. Each chapter was more like a short story than all the chapters combined into a novel. I did some research into each of the three leading ladies which was more appealing than the book. 2.5 stars?