Irene Fleming's "The Brink of Fame"

It's 1913 in Irene Fleming's new novel, The Brink of Fame, and Emily Daggett Weiss is left stranded and destitute. Film tycoon Carl Laemmle comes to her rescue with a job offer directing a film in Hollywood, provided she can track down and bring back Laemmle’s own missing star actor....

Here Fleming shares some suggestions for the dream cast of an adaptation of the novel:

I have to mix actors from different eras to get the desired effect. The actress who plays Emily Daggett should have a beautiful speaking voice, which lets out most of the young moderns with their nasal California accents. Carey Mulligan, maybe. Or back in the day, Jean Arthur.

I have always seen Holbert Bruns as Jimmy Stewart.

And the feckless Adam Weiss would be a handsome, high-strung star of the silents, John Gilbert.

Learn more about the book and author at Irene Fleming's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: The Edge of Ruin.

--Marshal Zeringue