Hollywood, 1938: As soon as she learns that M-G-M is adapting her late husband’s masterpiece for the screen, seventy-seven-year-old Maud Gage Baum sets about trying to finagle her way onto the set. Nineteen years after Frank’s passing, Maud is the only person who can help the producers stay true to the spirit of the book—because she’s the only one left who knows its secrets.
But the moment she hears Judy Garland rehearsing the first notes of “Over the Rainbow,” Maud recognizes the yearning that defined her own life story, from her youth as a suffragette’s daughter to her coming of age as one of the first women in the Ivy League, from her blossoming romance with Frank to the hardscrabble prairie years that inspired The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Judy reminds Maud of a young girl she cared for and tried to help in South Dakota, a dreamer who never got her happy ending. Now, with the young actress under pressure from the studio as well as her ambitious stage mother, Maud resolves to protect her—the way she tried so hard to protect the real Dorothy.
The author of two New York Times bestselling nonfiction books, The Eighty-Dollar Champion and The Perfect Horse, Elizabeth Letts is a master at discovering and researching a rich historical story and transforming it into a page-turner. Finding Dorothy is the result of Letts’s journey into the amazing lives of Frank and Maud Baum. Written as fiction but based closely on the truth, Elizabeth Letts’s new book tells a story of love, loss, inspiration, and perseverance, set in America’s heartland. (Synopsis courtesy of Amazon.)
I had been wanting to read Finding Dorothy for quite some time and never got a chance to until now. I am so glad I read it as it was really interesting and well-told. I enjoyed learning about Maud Baum's life and her connection with The Wizard of Oz. There is even some relevance to present-day issues.
My exposure to The Wizard of Oz was through the movie and I will admit I never read the books. I didn't know anything about L. Frank Baum's life, so I was fascinated to learn more about him through this story, even though the main focus was on Maud. She was a captivating woman and I appreciated getting the chance to know more about her. I didn't even know that her mother was a famous suffragette in the late 1800s: Matilda Gage.
Maud went through a lot in her life and we only really learn about everything up until Frank becomes a famous author for his Wizard of Oz book series. After that, we don't see Maud again until she visits the set of the movie in 1939 and befriends Judy Garland. Throughout the novel, we learn all about Maud's background from when she was a kid to when she goes to college and meets Frank soon after, to her life as a mother and moving to the Dakota Territory with her family. She and Frank endure some hardships and heartbreaks in their lives but they find a way to get through them in order for Frank to become successful. (These hardships are included in the trigger warnings below.) I loved how Maud really put herself out there to make sure the movie was done the right way and also how she tries to stand up for Judy, especially after some concerning situations.
Overall, this was a really engaging story and I enjoyed discussing it with my book club recently. I didn't really have any casting ideas, but I'd love to see Kathy Bates as Maud in the 1939 scenes.
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TW: Childbirth complications, miscarriage, death of infant, abortion, death of parents, inappropriate behavior of an adult towards a minor, an animal gets killed early in the story, poverty
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