Venus Blue

<p><em>Venus Blue</em> is a novel in pursuit of its own subject: a 1930s bush pilot and 'gorgeous vagabond' named Molly Lamanna. As the focal point of an intense devotion Molly nonetheless defies description: the closer one gets the more ambivalent she becomes. Discovered by Hollywood at the edge of an airstrip in the Mojave desert she manages to elude not only those about her but - as both amnesiac and pilot prone to long self-absolving flights up the Californian coastline - herself as well. Set in film-noir chiaroscuro the novel is narrated by a present-day Hollywood memorabilia collector Stefan Hollander. Something in the enticing vacuity of Molly's aspect as she flickers across a late-night television screen arrests his attention. Soon after he comes to possess a journal a kind of confessional bound in flamboyant sapphire kept by the one who most avidly worshipped at Molly's shrine: Millicent Rappaport herself a Hollywood beauty. Of all the veneration Molly would incite in the various broken or obliterated segments of her life Millicent's alone would come closest to capturing the spirit if not the heart of this glorious escapee.</p><p></p>