Sweet Memories

While making sweet memories in a world of make-believe, Mary Pickford discovers that love appears brightest when she least expects. Pulitzer-nominated author David W. Menefee's new fiction novel presents a memoir by Charlotte Pickford, Mary's mother, who vividly reveals their ambitions, triumphs, and tears. Thrill to the dazzling all-star cast of characters in the enduring story of an indomitable girl's vision of victory, and her mother's untiring endeavors to achieve those dreams no matter what the cost. Before Mary Pickford became famous as a silent movie star, she was Gladys Smith, a little girl from Toronto, who earned her family's bread and butter by portraying children long after her own childhood passed. Sweet Memories fades in on Mary after ten years of touring the back roads of Broadway, when the sixteen-year-old, lovely as a spring rose, faces the greatest challenge of her life. Caught on a merry-go-round making movies, worldwide adulation elevates her onto an unsteady pedestal as The Biograph Girl, where labor and love mix like oil and water. During the tempest of adoration, only Charlotte stands by her side, and only Owen abides in her heart. Together, they join a band of independent filmmakers in Cuba, but none of them suspect that they have unwittingly set sail on an explosive adventure that will take a lifetime to forget.

David W. Menefee is the Pulitzer nominated author of WALLY: THE TRUE WALLACE REID STORY (Foreword by Robert Osborne), and THE RISE AND FALL OF LOU-TELLEGEN, both of which were named among the Best Silent Film Books of 2011 by Thomas Gladysz in the San Francisco Examiner's annual ranking. David's other popular works include the monumental SARAH BERNHARDT, HER FILMS, HER RECORDINGS (Foreword by Kevin Brownlow), RICHARD BARTHELMESS: A LIFE IN PICTURES (named one of the Top Film Books of 2009), and THE FIRST FEMALE STARS: WOMEN OF THE SILENT ERA.