Dear Mr Hammerstein,
It may come as a surprise that I am writing to you, as it appears that the theater industry believes I am dead and can now make up whatever they wish about me... [opening line]
I read this for the prompt 'based on the top-grossing movie in the year of your birth'. Set in 1959, it's a novel about Maria von Trapp and her response to the forthcomming stage musical of 'The Sound of Music': her letter informs Hammerstein that she has 'several ideas about how the script can be fixed'. Hammerstein -- already ill with the stomach cancer that would kill him within a year -- is too busy (and possibly too nervous) to talk to her, so instead his secretary Fran has a series of conversations with Maria.
Moran has thoroughly researched Maria von Trapp's life, and especially her religious faith. Maria tells Fran about her unhappy childhood, her religious calling, her time with Georg von Trapp (not a martinet: apparently Maria was the stricter of the two) and the family's life in America after escaping (not over the mountains but on a train) from the Third Reich. Maria is at pains to right the record: meanwhile, Fran is wrestling with a romantic entanglement of her own. Can Maria's account of true love with Georg set her on the right path?
This was a quick and pleasant read, though I didn't really connect with either Fran or Maria. There were some interesting scenes of pre-war Austrian life, and I found the later story -- refugees in America, literally singing for their supper, with one of the children experiencing severe stage fright -- more interesting than the main narrative. It would probably have helped if I was a fan of (or even very familiar with) the film and the musical! Moran is a very readable writer, though, and the story was well-paced and compassionate.
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