anthologies. She is also an award-winning librettist and lyricist with several musicals to her credit that have been performed or workshopped across the USA. She currently lives in New York City where she also practiced as a criminal defense attorney.
Here Montclair dreamcasts an adaptation of her latest novel, An Excellent Thing in a Woman:
The Sparks and Bainbridge series features a pair of female protagonists in 1946 London, both in their late twenties. Iris Sparks is short and brunette, Gwen Bainbridge tall and blond. My mental casting of them draws on British films of the period, more centered on their voices than their appearances because they are constantly talking inside my head.Visit Alan Gordon's website.
My model for Iris was the young Glynis Johns, most notable for The Court Jester with Danny Kaye, where she was funny and drop-dead gorgeous. She was also possessed of a distinctive throaty voice that I was lucky to hear live some twenty years after that film when she was the first to sing “Send In The Clowns” on Broadway in A Little Night Music.
While I had no contemporary counterparts for Gwen in terms of her above-average height, I did summon up some of the cool British blondes of the times, particularly Madeleine Carroll of The 39 Steps, but with a thought or two thrown in the direction of Deborah Kerr vocally.
Who would I cast today? At the time I began writing the series, the height contrast combined with the talent suggested Jenna Coleman and Elizabeth Debicki, both terrific actresses with a full foot separating them. I would have loved to see them interacting on the screen together. Another possibility for Iris: Jessica Brown Findlay, most noted for the doomed Sybil Crawley in Downton Abbey, a terrific actress who could bring Iris’s intensity. And an interesting choice was suggested when a possible screenwriter for the series proposed making Gwen Anglo- Indian: Jameela Jamil, who blew me away in The Good Place and is an imposing 5’11”.
The heights are superficial characteristics, of course, and yet Iris’s determination to learn martial arts may have stemmed in part from her desire to compensate for not being taken seriously not just as a woman in that period, but a short one as well. And Gwen’s position in the other end of the bell curve both separates her in her social circles and can surprise and intimidate the men she encounters.
All I can say is, let’s turn this into something and cast these ladies before we all get too old! But I’m sure there are some up-and-comers ready to take on these roles.
The Page 69 Test: An Excellent Thing in a Woman.
Q&A with Allison Montclair.
--Marshal Zeringue