I think I would have been less frustrated if I'd known there was so much biography before we get to the book. And I so loved the rest of the book, it was a small price to pay.

I really enjoyed learning about Edna Ferber and the making of Giant. It was written well and enjoyed how well researched Julie Gilbert used this. It had everything that I was looking for in a making of a Hollywood movie.

Giant Love is written by Julie Gilbert, a great-niece of Edna Ferber (the author of the novel Giant). I have enjoyed Ferber's work since I was a teenager. Giant and So Big are my favorites and I've read each several times. I also love the movie. And I love reading about the making of movies so I was excited to receive a copy of this book.

Gilbert is a good writer and obviously a loving and admiring great-niece. Once the book gets to the actual writing of the novel--the research, the run-ins with Texans around the themes of racism and critiques of Texan style, it really takes off and continues to soar through the making of the film. I was fascinated by the accounts Ferber's meticulous research and her interactions with the people she was researching. And the struggle to get the book optioned (fear of lawsuits by people whose stories closely mirrored characters in the book made studios reluctant to take on the project) as well as Ferber's struggles once the movie was in production to preserve the integrity of Leslie, the major (for Ferber) protagonist in the work. I had not realized how dedicated Ferber was to creating strong women--women who had stronger personalities and stronger integrity than the men in her novels.

And of course my favorite--the reason I love books about movies--stories in this work are those around the actors, especially Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, and James Dean, although there is much about many of the other actors in the film--what a tremendously strong cast it has! The relationship between Ferber and Dean is very touching. Gilbert depicts people that are as alive and fully formed as those in Ferber's books.

I only wish Gilbert had gotten to the writing of the book and then the material about the movie sooner. The first 20% of the book is a biography of Ferber--and, to be fair, the subtitle does begin with "Edna Ferber and..." but I thought that the focus would be on Ferber in relation to the book and the film. Even though the material Gilbert covers is interesting, and certainly leads up to the writing of Giant, I was very impatient to get to what I felt was the point of the book.

But this is just information for people so that they know what to expect. I think I would have been less frustrated if I'd known there was so much biography before we get to the book. And I so loved the rest of the book, it was a small price to pay. In addition, although I felt it slowed the pace, the information given increased my understanding of Ferber's character and approach to writing which in turn increased my enjoyment of the later parts of the book.

Ferber was a fascinating woman and I share Gilbert's regret that she isn't more widely read today. The struggles her characters have are deeply connected to difficult conditions in this country at different times and confront injustices and inequities in this country. There is however a feeling of strength and of the hope for change that I often miss today--in literature and in myself. I still reread Ferber because I love her characters, especially the women, and their fight to survive against sometimes powerful obstacles.

My thanks to NetGalley as well as the publisher, Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor | Pantheon, as well as the author for receiving an arc of this book which will be published in December 2024.

Giant Love is not only a great look at the classic Hollywood classic but also the book and author that created this story and how both impacted the classic James Dean film.