{"product_id":"2940169533170","title":"Delayed Rays of a Star: A Novel","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA dazzling debut novel following the lives of three groundbreaking womenamp;mdash;Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong, and Leni Riefenstahlamp;mdash;cinema legends who lit up the 20th century.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt a chance encounter at a Berlin soirée in 1928, the photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt captures three very different women together in one frame: up-and-coming German actress Marlene Dietrich, who would wend her way into Hollywood as one of its lasting icons; Anna May Wong, the world's first Chinese American star, playing for bit parts while dreaming of breaking away from her father's modest laundry; and Leni Riefenstahl, whose work as a director would first make her famousamp;mdash;then, infamous.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom this curious point of intersection, \u003ci\u003eDelayed Rays of a Star\u003c\/i\u003e lets loose the trajectories of these women's lives. From Weimar Berlin to LA's Chinatown, from a seaside resort in East Germany to a luxury apartment on the Champs-Élysées, the different settings they inhabit are as richly textured as the roles they play: siren, muse, predator, or lover, each one a carefully calibrated performance. And in the orbit of each star live secondary playersamp;mdash;a Chinese immigrant housemaid, a German soldier on leave from North Africa, a pompous Hollywood directoramp;mdash;whose voices and viewpoints reveal the legacy each woman left in her own time, as well as in ours.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAmanda Lee Koe's playful, wry prose guides the listener dexterously around murky questions of ego, persona, complicity, desire, and difference. Intimate and raw, \u003ci\u003eDelayed Rays of a Star\u003c\/i\u003e is a visceral depiction of womanhoodamp;mdash;its particular hungers, its calculations, and its eventual betrayalsamp;mdash;and announces a bold new literary voice.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47116773327088,"sku":"2940169533170","price":22.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940169533170_p0.jpg?v=1763685535","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940169533170","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}