Written by Marie Benedict

This historical novel retells the story of the 40’s screen actress Hedy Lamarr, born Hedwig Kiesler, an Austrian Jew living in Vienna during the years preceding WWII. Recognized for her astounding beauty, she marries a munitions manufacturer who sells arms to the Nazis, and is imprisoned in a dangerous, controlling marriage to the man. She ultimately flees the marriage and makes her way to England, and then on to Hollywood, where Leo Mayer takes her under his wing and provides her with her film opportunities. She goes through a series of marriages and affairs, while proving to be a bit of an inventor. With a passion for science and consumed by survivor’s guilt for having left her beloved Austria, she invents, along with the musician George Antheil a new frequency-skipping system for torpedoes in which radio signals transmitting from a ship or airplane to its torpedo would constantly change frequencies, making those signals impenetrable and improving the torpedoes’ accuracy–which she strives and ultimately fails to see realized during the war, largely because the Navy is unwilling to accept the invention of a woman. It is a fascinating story about a breathtakingly beautiful woman who goes far beyond her glamorous movie-star role.

The story is fascinating, but the pose is somewhat transparent and a bit overwrought in places, particularly in the early sections when Hedy is still in Austria and under the wing of her ruthless husband. The writing is definitely a means to an end but not an end in itself. The book is not about the way it is told, but what is told. It is also a little top-heavy, with the early sections getting more weight, while the story of her invention gets a bit slighted, as does the ending of the book where instead of inventing she is selling war bonds. Still, we have Hedy Lamar to thank in part for the cellphone as we know it today, as it is her frequency-skipping idea that is the basis of spread-spectrum technology in cell phone development. The fact that her invention was never acknowledged in her lifetime reflects the marginalization of women’s contributions, both then and now.