Hollywood Mystique: a review of The Woman in Black

"Reading The Woman in Black" © 2019 Kristin Fouquet

There is romanticism in devotion after death, especially in Hollywood. Joe DiMaggio sent roses to Marilyn Monroe’s gravesite weekly for twenty years. Rudolph Valentino had the “Lady in Black” who visited his grave annually for decades. In Erik Tarloff’s fourth novel, the deceased actor Chance Hardwick has The Woman in Black. 

Tarloff’s book is a structural marvel. In The Woman in Black, Gordon Frost is a film producer, historian, and university professor. Frost claimed Chance Hardwick was the best actor of the postwar generation. His obsession with Hardwick drove him to search for those who knew the actor or at least thought they had. He interviewed forty-seven “witnesses” who were familiar with Chance Hardwick- spanning from his upbringing in the Midwest to his New York City theater days, then to his final years in Hollywood. Each interwoven account has been transcribed from a recording of the interview. One must remember this is a work of fiction and it’s quite the feat for Tarloff to have delivered all of these distinct characters with their unique voices. This reader was able to keep track of all the witnesses with ease.

Who is the mysterious woman dressed in black who visits Chance Hardwick’s grave each year on the anniversary of his death? Read The Woman in Black for the answer.

Erik Tarloff’s The Woman in Black.

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