From the questionably worded opening, I knew that I, Gloria Grahame probably wouldn’t be a book for me, but I stuck with it as this was an ARC sent to me by Netgalley.
The narrative had so much potential to be interesting, the writing style was very unique. This is about an ageing Professor, Denton Moulton, who fantasises about being an old Hollywood actress named Gloria Grahame.
It feels as though he is objectifying this character through a male gaze, despite Denton being gay, and it is stated that this character is not a closeted trans woman. In fact it seems quite anti-trans/ transphobic at times, which is not what I hoped when selecting a book from the LGBTQ+ category.
The creepiness of the Professor towards his young students is just very off-putting and comes across as lecherous. It’s as though he is using the Gloria Grahame persona as an excuse to act this way.
He is wanting his student to perform a stage show based around Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis poem - again, for creepy reasons. Maybe we as readers are supposed to despise Denton?
The author is apparently a drag queen, so I wish they had angled the story from that perspective. The Drag scene is very interesting and has lots of talented performers. When requesting this, that was the kind of book I hoped it to be, so perhaps I went in with false expectations.

Awarding 1 Star, simply because it has to have a star rating on NetGalley. And as I was reading, I saw glimmers of how good and different this story could have been, but the negatives far outweighed the positives here.

A shy, effeminate professor with low self-esteem tries to come to terms with himself by writing the fantastical autobiography of a now deceased film star, who is anything but shy, but also carries great trauma. Connecting the autobiographical narrative, in which the professor is the protagonist, and the biography of the diva, there are two artistic productions - a theatrical version of a Shakespeare poem for the professor, a film for the film diva - that will never be realized (the film mentioned in the book, which was actually made, has a different protagonist), and a series of events and scenes that punctuate the lives of the two characters. Particularly hilarious are the three interviews the professor has to undergo following his request for a grant for his play.
The narrative ends when the film diva manages to stabilize her emotional life, definitively consigning the professor to an old age devoid of affection.
A very unusual text, very enjoyable to read.

The story was really boring and hard to follow. There was a point in the book where the main character pretends to be black to have his play produced and his request is granted and this didn't feel right with me. It seems the author was trying to make some statement on "diversity quotas" and honestly it came off as insulting.

Juro que trate de terminarlo y adentrarme en la historia, pero fue un desastre. Los dos puntos de vista marean demasiado, nunca sabes si esta hablando el protagonista o el alterego, y ni hablar que le falta narración.
Gloria, ay Gloria. Fantasea el abuso DEMASIADO. Esperaba bastante de este punto de vista pero habia veces que no sabia quien era quien.
El libro basicamente trata sobre la apropiacion y transfobia, pero esta MUY MAL desarrollado. Lo que si celebro es el formato que utilizo el escritor, el no ponerle capitulos no lo hizo taaan largo como pensaba.
La novela tiene bastantes capas de elementos pero ninguna se disfruta.

Unfortunately I tried my best to get into this little fictional mess but I didn't managed to successfully connect with it. The two story lines seemed very very confusing and poorly developed, the characters unappealing and the drive behind the plots very stale.
The gay professor was frustratingly annoying and quite frankly boring. As for the Gloria Grahame angle, even if at one point in my life I did fantasize being her in Sudden Fear and taking great pleasure into driving Joan Crawford totally bonkers, her fictional presence in this novel totally failed to engage my interest. It's too bad because I was really looking forward to enjoy reading it. A cold and sad disappointment. Sorry...

Many thanks to Netgalley and Dundurn for the ARC

An interesting read that I wanted more from. The plot was difficult to follow and the character development felt like it was lacking more depth. I wanted more from this book simply put.

I won't be writing a full review of this book because I found it unreadable. The e-Arc format doesn't help (not that there's anything particularly wrong with how this book is formatted, it just doesn't help with the stream-of-consciousness voice and subject matter. Having read the other reviews, I didn't feel like this was worth persevering with. Great cover though.

In the first storyline, we follow Dr. Denton Moulton, an elderly professor, who is trying to get his play in the theatre. However, as a gay man, we also see his struggles to find love, knowing that he has taken an oath of professionalism between student and teacher.
However, when these attractive and beautiful ex-students reply to his advert to be in his play, he finds himself being surrounded by those he desired all those years ago. But is it love and admiration for a man, or are they using him?

The second storyline is through the actress of Gloria Grahame, in the voice of Dr. Moulten. As she divorces her husband Nicholas Ray, director. She speaks of her sexual desire for her stepson, the love affairs she has after her divorce, and the homosexuality of her ex-husband.

This novel has many layers and elements to it, however, they weren't all enjoyable. Gilbert writes how Moulton is struggling to get his play published because he is not 'diverse' enough; but when Moulton pretends he has black heritage he becomes approved. This all hit a bit of a nerve with me.

But I also didn't enjoy the switch within narratives. I understand this is done to keep the reader going, but it was actually a bit confusing at times; as both narratives were written in the first person and at times it wasn't obvious which narrative you were on.

Unfortunately, I have seen a few single-star reviews on this novel; and I'm sad to say I am one of them.

A professor of English literature writes the autobiography of his fantasy alter-ego, wanton movie star Gloria Grahame, while his own sexual desires go frustrated.

Denton Moulton — a shy, effeminate male professor — lives inside his head, where he is really a long-dead movie star: the glamorous Gloria Grahame, from the golden age of Hollywood. Professor Moulton is desperate to reveal Gloria’s shocking secret before he dies. Does he have the right to tell this woman’s story? Who, in fact, has the right to tell anyone’s story at all?

A scandalous, humorous novel of taboo desires and repression, I, Gloria Grahame alternates between Gloria’s imagined life with her film-director husband, Nicholas Ray, director of Rebel Without a Cause, and Denton’s increasingly frustrated real-life attempts to produce his own work of art: an all-male drag production of Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis. The novel takes us from high-strung film sets to dark bars and the puritanical offices of government arts granting agencies, where Denton runs up against the sternest warnings that he may not, in fact, imagine himself as someone else, even in art. An interesting read giving this one ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I've been requesting several books from the LGBTQIA+ section on Netgalley these past few weeks. As a young queer person, I wanted to read a lot of gay books during Pride month. This, however, is one I wish I'd avoided.

At its core, this is a book about appropriation and isolation. In this story, an ageing cis gay professor named Denton Moulton escapes his mundane, lonely life by daydreaming that he is a glamorous Old Hollywood star named Gloria Grahame. The narrative is split between Moulton's point of view, and the viewpoint of Moulton as Gloria. I thought this would be an interesting read, but I was wrong.

Gloria feels like a caricature of a woman because she is imagined by a man. Though he is gay and in touch with his femininity, Moulton is still a cis man; thus, he sees Gloria through a male perspective. He cannot help objectifying her in his fantasies. To him, she is a costume. We are reminded of this throughout the text. The professor is asked if he's trans, and denies it, so it's not as though he is a closeted trans woman.

I didn't like the way this novel seemed to mock people who call out the appropriation of Indigenous culture and two-spirit individuals. It also felt transphobic at times. There is a whole plot point where the professor isn't allowed to produce a play because he's not 'diverse' enough as a cis white gay man (79-83). Then, the protagonist pretends he is a Black man and immediately gets approved to stage his play. This idea is adjacent to a popular right-wing talking point. It perpetuates the idea that marginalized people get things handed to them because of diversity quotas. Not only is this untrue, but it's also harmful because it portrays oppressed individuals as having some sort of privilege. It's a scenario that just doesn't happen in real life, and it's something that privileged people imagine happening, so they can victimize themselves and call out 'diversity' practices in workspaces. I did a bit of research on the author, Sky Gilbert, and discovered that he has a transphobic past. As a result, I'm not surprised that these sentiments have crept into his work.