Everything began with an old photograph with the three Stars: Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong and Leni Riefenstahl. It is them, these three women, whose lives have intertwined for a short while and whom we remember through the movies they have starred in or directed, who form the basis of the story.
Historical facts are mixed with fiction, protagonists based on real people with fictional characters fully born in the imagination of Amanda Lee Koe. There is Marlene Dietrich, sleeping with men and women who asks that at her funeral white and red carnations are given to the guests (red to those she had spent a night with). There is Anna May Wong, born in an immigrant family in the States, who never feels like she belongs: in the States, where she is too Asian nor in China, where she is too American. There is also Leni Riefenstahl, who sacrifices everything to be a movie director, and yet she has to prove, again and again, that she is not worse at her job than men. And yes, all of them are not passive, they do not wait for us to like them. They shock, they lie, they seek. They pay for that with loneliness.
But (surprisingly?) the most interesting characters for me were not the famous women, but the anonymous, fictional men and women. They might seem irrelevant, just a background noise, but it is them who help us understand the bigger flow of history. They show us that the life of people not in the spotlight is not any less fascinating. For me it was the Chinese-born helper, who cleans Marlene’s flat or a gay soldier who loses his lover in the war that have kept me wanting to read on and on.
It is a book about conflicts (with social expectations, but also with your own self), about searching the meaning (of life, of art, of love), about consequences of your decisions, even if all they bring on is pain. Delayed Rays of a Star is a multifaceted novel, which at parts might even seem chaotic – but to me, it perfectly shows, what a huge, chaotic force is life (and art).
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