The Glass Character

In the heady times of the 1920s Hollywood, a teenager?s crush on the legendary screen idol, comedian Harold Lloyd, changes her life forever. The Glass Character is a story of obsessive love and ruthless ambition set in the heady days of the Jazz Age in the 1920s. It was a time when people went to the movies almost every day, living vicariously through their heroes: Valentino, Garbo, Fairbanks and Pickford. But comedians were the biggest draw, and broad slapstick the order of the day with one very significant exception. Standing beside Keaton and Chaplin in popularity and prowess was a slight, diffident man named Harold Lloyd ? the silent era?s most influential comedian.

For sixteen year-old Jane he was a living god and though Lloyd had as many female followers as Gilbert or Barrymore, Jane knew no one could adore him more than she did, and no one would be willing to sacrifice more to be part of his life. There is in her story a naivete in the voice and a wide-eyed innocence in the events, but as guileless as Jane may seem, her unaffected vision reveals much about the politics of the major studios, the power plays of the directors and producers, and the prima donna and egotistical Hollywood stars who ruled the movies. Her story also reveals much about the human heart and our desire to love against all the impossible odds. ?Margaret Gunning writes with uncanny grace and unflinching clarity . . . ? ? Montreal Gazette

Margaret Gunning?s experience in print journalism includes hundreds of columns and book reviews in such publications as the Globe & Mail, Vancouver Sun, Victoria Times-Colonist and Montreal Gazette. Her poems have appeared in Prism International, Room of One?s Own, Capilano Review and many others. Margaret?s first novel (Better than Life), described by the Edmonton Journal as ?fiction at its finest?, celebrates the joy and anguish of family in small-town Ontario. Her second novel (Mallory) explores issues of bullying and social ostracism. Gunning currently lives in Coquitlam, BC.