DC Public Library System

The debauched celebration of the cabaret era. The magical ascent of cinema. The deprivations of World War I and the buildup to World War II. Set against the rise and fall of Berlin and the innovations in art that accompanied it, The Glimmer Palace brilliantly weaves together the story of one orphan girl’s remarkable journey, from poverty to film stardom, with an illuminating account of an astonishing history.  As the clock chimes the turn of the twentieth century, Lilly Nelly Aphrodite takes her first breath. The illegitimate, soon orphaned daughter of a cabaret performer, she lands at a Catholic orphanage where she finds refuge and the first in a string of friendships that will change the direction of her life. When fellow orphan Hanne takes Lilly beyond their stone-walled confines, introducing her to the seedy glamour of Berlin’s notorious nightlife, Lilly’s trajectory of reinvention begins. From urchin to maid, teenage war bride, tingle-tangle bar girl, model, and script typist, Lilly is eventually transformed into one of Germany’s leading film stars and a partner in a remarkable love story that will span decades and continents–and be inextricable from the history unfolding around it.  The tale of an extraordinary heroine living in an extraordinary time, THE GLIMMER PALACE is vivid in its telling, and intelligent and ambitious in its scope.

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The Glimmer Palace