Title:
To All My Fans, With Love, From Sylvie
Author: Ellen Conford
Author: Ellen Conford
Publication
Information: Little, Brown & Co., hardcover, 1982; Lizzie Skurnick Books,
trade paper, 2013
Genre:
Young Adult Setting:
1956, United States
Plot: Sylvie is a pretty, movie-magazine-obsessed, mature-looking 15-year-old
who has lived in foster care since she was 7, and the last three foster
families have included a lecherous father.
Sylvie learned the hard way that no one takes her fears of these men seriously
so she has saved every penny to run away to Hollywood where she expects to be
discovered. Naturally, some creep on the
bus steals her savings and Sylvie is forced to use her wiles to continue her
journey to stardom.
What I liked: How I love Ellen Conford’s books!
Dear Lovey Hart, I am Desperate; We Interrupt This Semester for an Important Bulletin; and The Alfred Graebner Memorial High School Handbook of Rules and Regulations are three of my all time favorites. Sylvie is a poignant rather than funny
heroine, so yearning for affection that it breaks the reader’s heart. The humor so pervasive in Conford’s other
books is replaced by a vivid description of 50s suburbia and a heroine whose
escapism into movie fandom completely informs her world view. Carrie Wasserman is self-deprecating and
appealing; this book has a lot of amusing moments but Sylvie is not
intentionally funny:
That
hatbox was one of the very few things I’d bought for myself out of my
savings. It was beautiful, ivory-colored
simulated leather, and even though it cost $14.99 on sale, I knew I had to have
it. I’m very realistic and practical,
and I knew it might take me a while after I got to Hollywood to get my first
break in the movies, so I figured I would do some modeling until I was
discovered. A lot of movie stars start
that way, and models make sometimes $35 to $50 an hour. And all the models
go from job to job with their stuff in a hatbox, just like mine. It’s a model’s trademark, her hatbox, and if I had one, they’d know I was a
professional just by looking at me.
Amusing to the reader but sad too. At
times this book seemed more like a YA problem novel from the 70s than my
beloved Ellen Conford. I don’t recall reading it before although I knew exactly when Sylvie was going to be robbed
on the bus (memory or instinct?). I like that this is
dedicated to Susan Beth Pfeffer – isn’t it fun to think of authors you like
being friends? I met Ms. Conford once in 1986 and she signed A Royal Pain for my sister at the old Eeyore's Bookstore. She was a bit taken aback by my enthusiasm and said, "Aren't you a little old for my books?" I guess that was before YA adult readers were out of the closet!
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