Kansas
In 1922, the author reaches a definitive conclusion about what course her life will take: “if I was to create my dream woman, I had to get rid of my Kansas accent.” At this point it becomes clear that despite a very happy and fulfilling family life and childhood lived in Wichita, Kansas already represents for Mary Louise Brooks something quite similar to what it represented to a young girl named Dorothy: a place to escape from in order to life out dreams.
Dancing
Also notably similar to Dorothy Gale is the way that dancing becomes a kind of symbol of escape. for Louise. Dorothy sings in the sepia-toned section of The Wizard of Oz set in Kansas, sure enough; but she does not dance. Not until she gets to Oz. At the age of ten, Brooks latches onto dancing almost certainly in large part because it allowed her to express herself, but certainly to a significant degree as a potential ticket to her dreams on the far side of the square that was Kansas both literally and metaphorically.
That Dutch Bob
The author describes the very moment when she first got her trademark Dutch bob. She’d had long black braids up to moment that a barber followed her mother’s instructions to give her a new look that would heighten the dramatic intensity of her stage presence. That signature haircut trading on both the drama and the sheer efficiency of those short bangs becomes a symbol of the woman herself as the narrative unfolds: a woman possessed of an idiosyncratic state of mind tempered by a secure sense of what seemed most appropriate to her at any given time.
Smiling
The book is generously if not copiously accompanied by photographs of its author if one is paying attention early on, by the time they reach those images they will realize that what may have seem a rootless boast early on proves not just true but essential to the construction of the mythic figure that is Louise Brooks. On page nine she writes of the moment as a child appearing on stage that she decided “I would never smile unless I felt like it.” A quick glance through the photos demonstrates a commitment beyond belief; Brooks is rarely shown smiling and when she does, it is almost certain to be a candid off-screen portrait. That severe projection onto characters on-screen effectively becomes the defining symbol of the uniquely idiosyncratic devotion to principle formulated by the actress off-screen.
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart is delineated in very quick and precise strokes without belaboring the point as the unspoken symbol of how to deal with Hollywood illusion; a symbol which finds its utter opposite in Louise Brooks. The Bogart that had already become the legend before his early death was a complete reconstruction of the truth to fit audience expectations; Brooks pointedly notes that the Bogart known to most people barely even resembled either the one she met early or the one he eventually became. He becomes a powerful symbol of both of how to allow the illusion to grow around you in Hollywood without becoming complicit in the fiction or being cast out like Brooks for actively fighting against the illusion being allowed at all.
