The name Heddy Lamarr has long garnered respect and attention amongst American cinema lovers. Known widely for rolls in movies like Samson and Delilah and My Favorite Spy in the 1950s, her work off camera has made her a celebrity all over again more recently. An abusive marriage to an influential arms dealer, a race to escape Austria as the Nazis invaded, and a fight to find respect in a male-dominated industry pushed Heddy to find ways she could help fight against the Nazis from her California home. Inspired by the weaponry her ex-husband peddled and newly released remote-control devices, Heddy and her partners invented devices still in use today.
Best-selling author Marie Benedict delivers a fantastic historical fiction based on the life of Heddy Lamarr in The Only Woman in the Room. Focused greatly on Lamarr’s life as a teen actress in Austria and young wife to Fritz Mandl, Benedict expertly builds the motivations that Heddy experienced throughout her life that brought her to inventing. Benedict also shows the power that loss and looking for the “missing piece” can have over our lives. This is a book about finding your own way and not allowing the expectations or desires of others to control your destiny.
I give The Only Woman in the Room 4 out of 5 stars. I really like this this book, but parts of the novel felt forced as though they were important points in Heddy’s life that needed to be included, but were tough to fold into the narrative. I also felt like some of the later moments in Heddy’s life were disjointed compared to how well the time during her marriage to Mandl was woven together. One note of caution to readers unfamiliar with German or Austrian names and vocabulary – there were a few that were tough to sound out.
Fans of Benedict’s other historical fiction works like The Personal Librarian or Her Hidden Genius will love this book! I would also recommend this book for readers who love WWII history and the Hollywood history, too. This would be a fantastic women’s literature book club pick with themes of finding power in a male-driven environment and learning to put yourself first.
I chose The Only Woman in the Room for the Read With Lindsey Reading Challenge prompt “about a woman in science”. There are so many great historical fiction books about women in science, but also so many great biographies and memoirs as well. If you’re looking for a nonfiction recommendation, check out Rise of the Rocket Girls by Nathalia Holt or The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.
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What I’m Reading
- Current print book: Tom Clancy Line of Demarcation, M.P. Woodward
- Current audio book: Meet Me at the Lake, Carley Fortune
- Book I’m most looking forward to: Light a Penny Candle, Maeve Binchy
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