Life may not be going according to plan for Ceinwen Reilly, but she’s determined to find the cinema-worthy thread in her 1980s Lower East Side life. That may be easier said than done, given her retail job at a vintage shop and her shabby Avenue C apartment.
But this Mississippi transplant and film buff finds the romantic in everything, from saving for a particularly stunning pair of earrings to the antics of her two male roommates. So Ceinwen is easily bewitched by her elderly neighbor Miriam’s stories of working as a seamstress in Hollywood, which inspire a search for a long-lost silent film.
Film critic and blogger (“The Self-Styled Siren”) Farran Smith Nehme packs the story with tidbits of classic movie knowledge that are sure to delight cinema lovers. Set against a backdrop of the AIDS epidemic and a down-on-its-luck neighborhood, Missing Reels offers a fresh take on the traditional coming-of-age in New York story.
This article was originally published in the December 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.
