Whisper of the Moon Moth by Lindsay Jayne Ashford: book review

Whisper of the Moon Moth (2017) is a fictional account of the real British-Indian actress, Merle Oberon (1911-1979).

In 1931, nineteen-year-old Estelle Thompson, living in Calcutta, India, is already a movie addict, going to the local cinema as often as she could. When Ben Finney thinks her beauty should be shared with the world, he pays for Estelle’s one-way trip to England, where she is introduced to the film director Miles Mander.

When Alexander Korda, a film director, suggests her for the part of Anne Boleyn in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), she changed her name, using her middle name Merle, and Oberon, the king of the fairies in William Shakespeare’s play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Her Indian heritage was kept secret. Instead, Korda conjured up the story that she was born in Tasmania, Australia (which would explain her ‘strange accent’). But there were people who knew the real Estelle.

The story describes her affair with British actor David Niven, her marriage to Korda, as well as her relationship with her Indian mother and half-sister Connie.

This is not a biography. It is a re-imagination of events, with many additions and omissions. It stops in 1939 with her marriage to Korda, before her rise to stardom in over 50 movies.

For an introduction into the eary life of Merle Oberon, the novel is quite a good start. It is easy to read, and reveals the rapid early beginnings of her first and only career, and the glamorous life of an actress in the 1930s.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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