Louisa Treger's "The Dragon Lady"

Louisa Treger has worked as a classical violinist. She studied at the Royal College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and worked as a freelance orchestral player and teacher. Treger subsequently turned to literature, gaining a First Class degree and a Ph.D. in English at University College London, where she focused on early 20th century women’s writing and was awarded the West Scholarship and the Rosa Morison Scholarship “for distinguished work in the study of English Language and Literature.” The Lodger was published in 2014, The Dragon Lady in 2019 and she is currently working on her third novel.

Here Treger dreamcasts an adaptation of The Dragon Lady:

When this site's editor invited me to do this blog, I jumped at the chance. Surely choosing movie stars for your characters is a game every author plays once in a while?

The Dragon Lady blends fact with fiction to tell the story of Lady Virginia Courtauld – beautiful and defiant, with a scandalous past and a tattoo of a snake running the length of one leg. After a brief marriage to an Italian aristocrat, she wed Stephen Courtauld, a war hero, mountaineer, orchid collector, and heir to a textile fortune. Ostracized for being a foreign divorcee at the time of Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson, Virginia moved with Stephen to Rhodesia, where their philanthropic attempts to better the lives of all the colony’s inhabitants, black and white, led to anonymous death threats, misunderstandings and a shooting. Many people had reason to dislike Virginia, but who had reason enough to pull the trigger?

Virginia is vibrant, capricious and captivating. She is also insecure - desperate for social acceptance and a comfortable, comforting place to call home. I think that Rachel Weisz would portray every one of her qualities to perfection.

Stephen would have to be played by Ralph Fiennes because nobody does chilly reserve masking a deeply compassionate core like he does.

Catherine, a thirteen-year-old growing up in desperate isolation who unwittingly gets caught up in the adult tragedy unfolding around her, would be played by Elizabeth Olsen. Those big startled eyes, and that mixture of innocence and being wise beyond her years, are perfect to portray childhood, family dysfunction, and disillusionment.

Visit Louisa Treger's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Lodger.

Coffee with a Canine: Louisa Treger & Monty.

--Marshal Zeringue