Carol Comes to Broadway

Carol Page #3

by Helen Dore Boylston

Fresh and eager from the success which she scored in her small parts at the Winasset summer theater, Carol Page comes down to Broadway determined to find a part. She is ready to take anything, even the lowliest walk-on, for her dander is up; her father has taunted her with the remark that she will "go bust in two months." She has saved nearly $400 from her summer salary and she means to stretch this until a producer has given her the nod.

176 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1944

About the author

An only child, Helen Dore Boylston attended Portsmouth public schools and trained as a nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital. Two days after graduating, she joined the Harvard medical unit that had been formed to serve with the British Army. After the war, she missed the comradeship, intense effort, and mutual dependence of people upon one another when under pressure, and joined the Red Cross to work in Poland and Albania. This work, often in isolation and with little apparent effect, wasn't satisfying. Returning to the U.S., Boylston taught nose and throat anaesthesia at Massachusetts General for two years. During this time Rose Wilder Lane read Boylston's wartime diary and arranged for it to be published in the Atlantic Monthly. - Source

- More information

Series:
* Sue Barton
* Carol Page

Reviews

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

All four books in this series form a seamless whole: dated, sure, but really beautifully done - a lovely look at Carol finishing high school and falling into a career and then choosing to stick to it, grimly determined to get ahead. There are descriptions of acting as an art in a way that clearly communicate just how much it means to Carol (and the author); they don’t come across as realistic, maybe, but something about them is aspirational. This is sentimental but never too sentimental: any time it gets close, Mike shows up to be shockingly rude or sarcastic. It’s bracing.

This is of a piece with a lot of 40s books which feature women in careers - nurses, airline stewardesses, and here, actresses - and yet, like with Sue Barton, Boylston taps into something heartfelt here. I’ve been reading these yearly for a long time now. I think the fourth book is my favorite - or maybe the first, with Dear Brutus and that tree - or maybe it’s this one, which has a skunk, coupled with this gem of dialogue:

The skunk turned and began to ascend the stairs with a gentle humping motion of the broad white stripe...

Julia found her voice. “But - but - he turned around! He - did just what you told him!”

“Of course he did!” [Mrs. Garrett] turned to Mrs. Page, who was now shaking with laughter. “You don’t need to worry any about the girls. I can handle all sorts of skunks.”