Sister Stardust: A Novel

Dorset native Claire has always dreamed of a more glamorous life. After her mother’s death, her father remarries a woman she can’t stand and she takes solace in the huge meals and overwhelming love of her best friend’s house. When she decides to go on a fad yogurt diet and loses scads of weight, she refashions herself as Cece and becomes the driving force in her own life and in Jane Green’s new novel, Sister Stardust.

Set during the 1960s, the novel sees Cece jet from London to Morocco, where she becomes a member of the infamous entourage belonging to Paul Getty and his charismatic and highly sexual wife, Talitha. All of Cece’s inhibitions are tested as she cavorts with rock stars and drug addicts, artists and the obscenely rich. What they love about her is her naivete, and she loves their worldliness. But there is a price to pay for fame, and the love she witnesses between these new acquaintances is often tinged with pain, violence, and betrayal.

Touted as a novel about Talitha Getty, the book is really about Claire/Cece and her journey of self-discovery. It posits the following question: what happens when we get what we’ve always wanted and it turns out to not be what we want at all? The twists in the book are foreseeable and the characters are often flat renderings of famous figures, although the descriptions of the era and the sumptuousness of Morocco are absolutely stunning.