Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Libba Bray's The Diviners: a near Louise Brooks cover

Libba Bray's The Diviners, as
published in Italy.
Libba Bray's new young adult / teen novel, The Diviners, is set in 1920's New York City. It's story centers on Evie O'Neil, and features speakeasies, movie palaces, glamorous Ziegfield girls, rakish pickpockets, and a rash of occult-based murder. 

Kirkus Reviews said of The Diviners, "1920s New York thrums with giddy life in this gripping first in a new [series] from Printz winner Bray...The intricate plot and magnificently imagined details of character, dialogue and setting take hold and don't let go. Not to be missed."

The book contains a couple of references to Louise Brooks. One character, a Ziegfield girl named Theta Knight, is described as having "jet-black hair" cut into a "Louise Brooks shingle bob with bangs." Later, it is mentioned that Hollywood scouts were backstage and on the look-out for the "next Louise Brooks or Eddie Cantor."

The book has been published in a handful of countries, including Italy, where its cover (pictured above) features a Louise Brooks look-alike contemporary model sometimes mistaken for the actress. Thanks to Italian Brooks-scholar Gianluca Chiovelli for pointing this out! (He described the cover as "not Brooksian; Brooksiesque.") Here the book's American promotional video.


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