James Nicoll Reviews

Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s 2024 The Seventh Veil of Salome is a stand-alone historical novel about Golden Age Hollywood.

Pacific Picture’s wants its production of The Seventh Veil of Salome in the can ASAP. For that to happen, director Max Neiman needs start filming. For Max to start, he needs his Salome. Alas for Pacific, Max is a perfectionist, and in over a year of screen tests, he has not found his Salome.

Nancy Hartley is certain that the role should be hers. Instead, Max selects an unknown: Francisca Severa Larios Gavaldón, whom the public will know as Vera Larios.

Vera’s mother always wanted one of her daughters to be an actress. She picked the prettiest sister, Lumi, as an actress. Lumi rejected that career. Vera, however, was in the right place at the right time to win an audition. To everyone’s surprise, Vera is given the role for which no other actress was quite good enough.

Nancy Hartley, who had fancied the role, is enraged. Nancy has been doing everything she can to claw her way into stardom, but has failed. Now Vera has the leading role and Nancy has to settle for a far less appealing minor part.

Vera discovers that her shot at stardom comes at a price. 1950s America is rife with anti-Mexican prejudice. Hollywood has very specific notions about the public personas appropriate for Mexican actresses, notions that Vera finds unappealing. Worse yet, she’s sent out on studio-arranged dates with men that she doesn’t fancy at all, but must pretend to like for publicity purposes.

Not only that: filming doesn’t go smoothly. Vera struggles to meet the expectations of perfectionist Max. When Vera fends off predatory co-star Clifford Collins, Collins resolves to end her career. Vera finds herself being undermined at work and in the press.

What about Nancy, supporting actress in the same production? She tries to console herself with a flirtation with attractive and wealthy Jay Rutland. But it doesn’t take tempestuous Nancy long to alienate Jay — who then turns his attentions to Vera. This is just too much. Vera got her role and now she’s got her man. Nancy plots murder.

~oOo~

There’s a third woman in this tale; the woman at the centre of the script. Salome is Tetrarch Herod Antipas’ half-niece, daughter of Herod’s wife Herodias. As one might guess from the Hamlet-esque family structure¹, Herod’s court is a complicated, dangerous place. The events leading up to Herod and Herodias’ marriage inflamed the fury of pious leaders, not least of whom is young upstart Jokaanon the Prophet. Salome’s survival depends on a judicious marriage, so falling for handsome Jokaanon is not advisable. And yet….

As many readers may know, there were several Herods. Herod Antipas was the son of Herod the Great. Herod the Great is the Massacre of the Innocents Herod, while Herod Antipas executed John the Baptist and was one of the players in the events leading up to the Roman crucifixion of Christ. Then there’s Herod Agrippa, whom some of you may remember as Claudius’ friend in I, Claudius². That Herod was Herod the Great’s grandson and Herod Antipas’s nephew.

As the author notes, the historical record where Salome is concerned is perfunctory. Much of the standard tale was invented centuries later. There is ample room for invention and re-interpretation.

Not that Moreno-Garcia is writing a historical novel about Salome, exactly. She’s writing a historical novel about Salome as it might have been written by an overworked Hollywood writer for whom veracity was not mission one. 

The tragedy that unfolds is told from a number of viewpoints. While it’s clear from the start that something bad happened in the course of filming, the narrators of the tale are discussing well-known events that took place long ago. They don’t bother to explain just what calamities ensued. One might try to guess what happened by noting just who is telling the story in the first person and who is telling the story in the third person. That will give you a hint, but not the clue to the tale.

The book features characters about whom readers will care (if in some cases, not positively). Moreno-Garcia’s vivid Golden Age Hollywood tale is a skillfully told fable of yesteryear. Recommended.

The Seventh Veil of Salome is available here (Amazon US), here (Amazon Canada), here (Amazon UK), here (Apple Books), here (Barnes & Noble), here (Chapters-Indigo), and here (Words Worth Books).

1: I could not fit this into the synopsis: Salome is the daughter of Herodias and Herod’s half-brother Archelaus. Herodias left Archelaus for Herod. Herod for his part cast his own wife aside for Herodias. Archelaus, not as skilled at politics as his half-brother, was deposed and later committed suicide. None of this won them fans in the religious community. Drama!

2: Speaking of I, Claudius: Sejanus is mentioned in passing as having overplayed his hand, but as he has not yet been executed, this places the events somewhat prior to AD 31. Mind you, so does the execution of John the Baptist.