From Publishers Weekly
Garbo hardly ever laughed, and when she did, it was dubbed; reality is similarly transformed in this quirky, dreamy novel infused with movie mania. A plague of cinematic absorption settles over an Ottawa neighborhood in Hay's latest offering (her debut, A Student of Weather, was shortlisted for the Giller Prize). Harriet Browning's ascetic mother refused her the frivolity of the cinema as a child, and as an adult she views films obsessively. In middle age, she is the center of a small group of cinephiles: her son, Kenny, obsessed with Sinatra, watches classic movies to forget his troubles at school; her daughter, Jane, on the brink of adolescence, longs for the glamorous life; her neighbor and friend Dinah may be attracted mainly by the familial activity of watching together. Lew, Harriet's realist husband, is left out of this loop; his escapes come in the form of business trips to South America. The arrival of Harriet's aunt Leah, the trouble-making widow of a Hollywood screenwriter, and her stepson Jack, a lazy, fast-talking writer, leads to shifts in affections and allegiances. It is illness, however, that brings an end to the movie-watching, in true Hollywood weepy fashion. References to Pauline Kael (beloved by Harriet), top 100 movie lists and a lineup of movie greats (Marlon Brando, Sean Connery and Bette Davis are among the favorites) are as integral to the story as the interactions of its film-besotted protagonists. This is a gracefully written novel, mapping out the patterns of tension and release in a family whose members are best able to express their love and disappointment through the films of the past. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Greta Garbo is one of many movie stars who fascinate the alluringly eccentric characters found in the latest tale by one of Canada's most gifted novelists. In this witty, gracefully choreographed, and potent Ottawa-based family drama, Hay ponders our enthrallment to movies, conjuring a cast of ardent souls who cope with a catastrophic ice storm, unwelcome guests, undermined dreams, distressing infatuations, lingering illnesses, and sudden death by finding solace, even guidance, in classic films. Harriet, the Garbo-like star of the book, is a novelist who has developed the curious habit of writing but not mailing confiding letters to her hero, the then still-living film critic Pauline Kael, and discussing, at length, such burning cinematic questions as who is sexier, Cary Grant or Sean Connery, with her sweetly precocious and equally movie-mad son and daughter. As Harriet indulges her grand obsession with movies, she struggles with her less than passionate feelings for her real-life leading man and forges a warm but risky friendship with a new neighbor, the earthy Dinah. Imaginative, droll, and incisive, Hay's profound tale of attempted escape and accepted responsibility, of found joy and dreaded sorrow, deftly explores the dangers and benefits of fantasy. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Kirkus (starred Review)
"A sparkling demonstration of Hollywood's hold on our fantasies."


Chicago Tribune
"Her descriptions are beautiful."


Laura Miller, Curled Up With a Good Book
"Elizabeth Hay is a sinfully good writer to watch out for."


Review
?Garbo, Brando, Sean Connery? the stars are out in one Ottawa home that?s experiencing video heaven.? A sparkling demonstration of Hollywood?s hold on our fantasies ? and its awkward fit with our earthbound selves.?
?Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

?This rich, lovely novel makes us think about the ambivalences and contradictions of relationships and the patience of love, and see in a new way the shape of a fern frond. It also makes us want to reread Jane Austen and to find out whether the video store has a copy of Rear Window or Singing in the Rain.?
?Quill & Quire (starred review)

?I loved it. I don?t think I?ve ever read anything quite like it. All the details are so right ? about the time, about the characters. It was like reading Cat?s Eye by Margaret Atwood (one of my favorite books) or Empire Falls by Richard Russo, where you marvel about the confidence and exactness the author has for place and people. The characterization of Harriet and Ken is wonderful and rich. The way their passion for movies is tied into the plot is amazing. (I?ve resolved to go rent some of the ones they were so absorbed by, many of which I?ve seen before, just because they gave me a different way of looking at them.) And then I cried for about the last 25 pages. Who could ask more from a book? I think it?s an extraordinary book ? one of those extremely intelligent books that just bowl you over with a great narrative and the obvious warmth the author feels for her characters.?
?Pauline Ziniker, Bookseller, Country Bookshelf

?I want to nominate Garbo Laughs by Elizabeth Hay for BookSense for October. She is a wonderful writer with a rich prose style and I?m hoping this can be her breakout novel like Bel Canto was for Ann Patchett. I found this novel to be very moving, with its memorable characters, amazing voices and wonderful movie trivia and literary allusions. It made me laugh. It made me cry. It was like no other book I remember.?
?Andy Lillich, Bookseller, University of Oregon Bookstore

?I?m only to page 82 of Elizabeth Hay?s new ? did I say ?wonderful, new? ? novel and it occurs to me that more than one smart-aleck reviewer will title their critiques ?Guise and Dolls.? What a pleasure it is to read a book that you want to read.?
?Richard Bachmann, Bookseller, A Different Drummer Bookstore

?Greta Garbo is one of many movie stars who fascinate the alluringly eccentric characters found in the latest tale by one of Canada?s most gifted novelists. In this witty, gracefully choreographed, and potent Ottawa-based family drama, Hay ponders our enthrallment to movies, conjuring a cast of ardent souls who cope with a catastrophic ice storm, unwelcome guests, undermined dreams, distressing infatuations, lingering illnesses, and sudden death by finding solace, even guidance, in classic films?. Imaginative, droll, and incisive, Hay?s profound tale of attempted escape and accepted responsibility, of found joy and dreaded sorrow, deftly explores the dangers and benefits of fantasy.?
- Booklist (starred review)


Book Description
This is a novel about movie love. Set in Ottawa in the 1990s, it is the quixotic tale of tall, thin Harriet Browning, inflamed by the movies she was deprived of as a child. Harriet is a woman so saturated with the movies, seen repeatedly and swallowed whole, that she no longer fits into this world. Bent on seeing everything she has missed, she forms a Friday night movie club with three companions-of-the-screen: a boy who loves Frank Sinatra, a girl with Bette Davis eyes, and an earthy sidekick named Dinah for Dinah Shore. Breaking in upon this quiet backwater, in time with the devastating ice storm of 1998, come two refugees from Hollywood, the faded widow of a famous screenwriter and her movie-expert stepson. They are harsh reality. With them come blackouts, arguments, accidents, illness and sudden death. But what chance does real life stand when we can watch movies instead? What hope does real love have when movie love, in all its brief intensity, is an easy option? In this comedy of secondhand desire, movies and movie lovers come first

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Set in Ottawa in the 1990s, it is the quixotic tale of tall, thin Harriet Browning, inflamed by the movies she was deprived of as a child. Bent on seeing everything she has missed, she rapidly becomes so saturated with old movies, seen repeatedly and swallowed whole, that she no longer fits into the real world. Equally addicted are her three companions-of-the-screen: a boy who loves Frank Sinatra, a girl with Bette Davis eyes, and an earthly sidekick named after Dinah Shore. Breaking in upon this quiet backwater, in time with the devastating ice storm of 1998, come two refugees from Hollywood, the jaded widow of a famous screenwriter and her movie-expert stepson. They are Harsh Reality, who bring blackouts, arguments, accidents, illness and sudden death. But what chance does real life stand when we can watch movies instead? What hope does real love have when movie love, in all its brief intensity, is an easy option? In this brilliant and poignant comedy of secondhand desire, movies and movie lovers come first.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New York Times

The strength of Hay's second novel -- the first, A Student of Weather, was a finalist for Canada's Giller Prize -- comes from the author's fresh observations on the ebb and flow of love, the vagaries of female friendship, the power of the changing seasons (a good chunk of the book takes place during the historic ice storm of 1998) and the realities of the writer's life. — Karen Karbo

The Washington Post

Elizabeth Hay, the author of the acclaimed A Student of Weather, is a gifted stylist with an eye for telling detail and quietly cruel characterizations … Hay's characters are appealingly confused creations, if also a little too determinedly eccentric for their own good. The frequent movie talk and the interpolated Kael letters keep much of the dialogue breezy and pleasingly allusive. — Chris Lehmann

Publishers Weekly

Garbo hardly ever laughed, and when she did, it was dubbed; reality is similarly transformed in this quirky, dreamy novel infused with movie mania. A plague of cinematic absorption settles over an Ottawa neighborhood in Hay's latest offering (her debut, A Student of Weather, was shortlisted for the Giller Prize). Harriet Browning's ascetic mother refused her the frivolity of the cinema as a child, and as an adult she views films obsessively. In middle age, she is the center of a small group of cinephiles: her son, Kenny, obsessed with Sinatra, watches classic movies to forget his troubles at school; her daughter, Jane, on the brink of adolescence, longs for the glamorous life; her neighbor and friend Dinah may be attracted mainly by the familial activity of watching together. Lew, Harriet's realist husband, is left out of this loop; his escapes come in the form of business trips to South America. The arrival of Harriet's aunt Leah, the trouble-making widow of a Hollywood screenwriter, and her stepson Jack, a lazy, fast-talking writer, leads to shifts in affections and allegiances. It is illness, however, that brings an end to the movie-watching, in true Hollywood weepy fashion. References to Pauline Kael (beloved by Harriet), top 100 movie lists and a lineup of movie greats (Marlon Brando, Sean Connery and Bette Davis are among the favorites) are as integral to the story as the interactions of its film-besotted protagonists. This is a gracefully written novel, mapping out the patterns of tension and release in a family whose members are best able to express their love and disappointment through the films of the past. (Oct.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Canadian author Hay's new work is much like an obverse bookend to her first novel, A Student of Weather. While that title is a book of intensity, heat, and unrequited relationships, Garbo Laughs is a novel of emotional winter, ice storms, and underdeveloped relationships. Harriet Browning, her family, and her friends don't so much live life as observe it through the filter of movies. Theirs is a world in which "the hold that Hollywood has on all of our minds" is such "that everything finally is a cliche." The relationships between friends and family are strained by the arrival of a cousin and aunt who represent the wider world, and by the ice storm that encases Ottawa, where the novel is set. Hay's characters are somewhat stilted, and Harriet is a victim of Hay's deft drawing of an insipid and timid woman-the only emotion she stirs in the reader is the desire to give her a good shake. Garbo Laughs has the potential to be a popular cult novel for movie buffs, but for other readers it is like looking at a negative instead of at the fully developed picture.-Caroline M. Hallsworth, City of Greater Sudbury, Ont. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews