ONE OF THE SUNDAY TIMES‘ 100 BEST SUMMER READS OF 2020
‘It’s hard to beat Susanna Moore’s Miss Aluminium‘ Vogue
‘A sharp-edged summery treat’ Hadley Freeman
‘Unlike any Hollywood memoir you’ll have read’ Metro
At seventeen, Susanna Moore left her home in Hawai’i, with no money, no belongings and no prospects. But in Philadelphia, an unexpected gift of four trunks of beautiful clothes allowed her to assume the first of many disguises.
Her journey takes her from New York to Los Angeles where she becomes a model and meets Joan Didion and Audrey Hepburn. She works as a script reader for Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson, and is given a screen test by Mike Nichols.
But beneath Miss Aluminium‘s glittering fairytale surface lies the story of a girl’s insatiable hunger to learn. Moore gives us a sardonic, often humorous portrait of Hollywood in the seventies and of a young woman’s hard-won arrival at selfhood.
‘It’s hard to beat Susanna Moore’s Miss Aluminium‘ Vogue
‘A sharp-edged summery treat’ Hadley Freeman
‘Unlike any Hollywood memoir you’ll have read’ Metro
At seventeen, Susanna Moore left her home in Hawai’i, with no money, no belongings and no prospects. But in Philadelphia, an unexpected gift of four trunks of beautiful clothes allowed her to assume the first of many disguises.
Her journey takes her from New York to Los Angeles where she becomes a model and meets Joan Didion and Audrey Hepburn. She works as a script reader for Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson, and is given a screen test by Mike Nichols.
But beneath Miss Aluminium‘s glittering fairytale surface lies the story of a girl’s insatiable hunger to learn. Moore gives us a sardonic, often humorous portrait of Hollywood in the seventies and of a young woman’s hard-won arrival at selfhood.
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Reviews
Miss Aluminium, is a triumphant, inspiring account of how to find your true self in the most unlikely of settings
A captivating portrait of a woman in search of herself
A rollercoaster ride that will both move and entertain
A sharp-edged summery treat
A striking new memoir ... Through the #MeToo lens, Moore's measured, superficially judgment-free recounting of her time in the middle of All That can be read as a personal statement of empowerment: She came, she saw, she took notes, and she left to become a novelist and a miss-no-detail student of female autonomy.
A tantalizing tale, told in a seductive and provocative voice.
An outstanding memoir... A novelist best known for her extraordinary 1995 erotic thriller In the Cut, Moore has now written an extraordinary memoir... The descriptive writing is a joy.
As readers of Moore's fiction know, she is a brilliant storyteller and sentence-maker . . . Miss Aluminum reminded me of everything I ever loved about her as a writer and now, as happens with certain memoirs, I feel like she is my friend? A very elegant, accomplished grande dame sort of friend, to be sure, one who might loan you a pair of blue velvet Pucci bell-bottoms or a copy of 'The Great War and Modern Memory' on your way out the door after tea.
As well as documenting Moore's heartbreaks, Miss Aluminium is also full of humorous tales about the famous... a poignant remembrance of a life lived in the shadow of family tragedy, as well as being a wry peak into celebrity narcissism.
Disarmingly candid... This is her first memoir and it's even better than her fiction... Moore deploys a disarming repertoire of sideswipes, gallows humour and raised eyebrows, whether writing about trivia or tragedy... There's a fascination here with toxic masculinity that makes you think of the dangerous, sexually potent detective in In the Cut.
It's a tale of shimmering, glamorous surfaces that conceal something darker and more painful... Miss Aluminium positions Moore as a chronicler of Sixties power and pleasure to rival her friend Didion, and, you sense, this model-actress-author has plenty more Hollywood stories to tell. We can only hope she chooses to share them.
It's hard to beat Susanna Moore's Miss Aluminium
Miss Aluminium is a different order of achievement entirely, both in its scalding honesty and its sly, watchful humour. I haven't read a book like it in years.
Moore's book captures what it was like to come of age in a glamorous world, but there was darkness beneath the surface. If the 70s was Hollywood's Golden Age, Miss Aluminium illustrates that there was much suffering and exploitation behind the scenes - and yet the young wannabe writer and actor from Hawaii clearly had plenty of fun along the way
Moore's search for stability during a free-spirited decade is a whirlwind of celebrity encounters and a lyrical exploration of the lingering effects of a mother's death
Now seventy-four, and a well-regarded author, Moore is ready to expose her "shadow self" and the pain of her early life . . . One gets a sense that what is revealed has been chosen appraisingly, not out of coyness but, rather, out of something resembling an architect's appreciation of a structure's good bones. Moore's writing has the slightly mysterious sense of detachment that she adopted when building her persona, many years ago, though paradoxically this is what makes her revelations, when they come, more piercing.
Poignant and hugely entertaining... As she tries on different identities, the book becomes less about childhood trauma than an examination of the masks women wear to meet social expectations, occasionally prompting them to forget who they are entirely... The book bursts with brilliantly gossipy titbits, recounted with wry understatement... From the outside, Moore's life seemed gilded with its merry-go-round of parties, lovers, designer clothes and dizzyingly famous friends. In Miss Aluminium, her tales of the Hollywood high life certainly provide giggles and glitz, though the darkness is never far from the surface. The real story is the ripple effect of grief, a woman's self-invention and the awful deeds of powerful men.
Susanna Moore on working in Hollywood in the 1970s is literally my fantasy weekend read, and it does not disappoint.
Susanna Moore's memoir Miss Aluminium is the most blissful brilliant beautiful book. How it manages to be so glittery with old Hollywood gossip, and yet to be so utterly serious about a woman's struggle for self-determination, I don't know, but there it is.
There's a kind of writing about LA that I am a sucker for. Gossipy, lyrical, with a surface of affectless simplicity but an undertow of melancholy that can be personal or institutional or, best of all, both entwined ... Joan Didion did it; Eve Babitz specialised in it... Miss Aluminium is that kind of book. I, of course, adore it. Miss Aluminium ends before Moore really becomes a writer, but with her poised for that part of her life to begin; its ravishing execution is testament to how fine a writer she became.
Wonderful ... Moore's sketches of famous friends cut to the quick - Nichols is tiringly brilliant; Beatty is restless and ravenous; Roman Polanski (this 20-something starlet was "too old to interest him") makes a contest of everything
Hollywood's darker side is exposed in this model-turned-writer's tales of her time among the stars
In this superb Hollywood memoir, novelist Susanna Moore tells the story of her early years... just as memorable is Moore's unflinching portrayal of the darkness beneath the glamour of Seventies Hollywood
Moore's account of her time as a model and bit-part actress in Hollywood is peppered with famous names, from Audrey Hepburn and Harrison Ford to Warren Beatty and Roman Polanski. But this riveting book isn't just about being on the fringes of celebrity: it's a compellingly dark tale of a young woman navigating her way through a sea full of sharks ... This is a totally gripping and tremendously entertaining memoir.
There may not be an air bridge to the US just yet but you can still touch down on Tinseltown high life thanks to Susanna Moore's memoir, Miss Aluminium... her understated book is unlike any Hollywood memoir you'll have read
The bare-bone facts of Susanna Moore's memoir read like a dark fairy tale... Heartbroken, directionless and adrift in a man's world... she embarks on a quest to find a voice and sense of selfhood, poignantly described by the older, wiser Susanna
There is a coolness in the way she describes traumatic events. Such understatement also lends itself to wicked humour... In another's hands, a Hollywood memoir would be pure titillation. What makes this stand out is its depiction of a specific place in time and the elegant restraint of its prose... an excellent book
Moore's book captures what it was like to come of age in a glamorous world, but there was darkness beneath the glittering surface. If the 70s was Hollywood's Golden Age, Miss Aluminium illustrates that there was much suffering and exploitation behind the scenes