Giant Love

Edna Ferber, Her Best-selling Novel of Texas, and the Making of a Classic American Film

By: Julie Gilbert

Narrated by: Maggi-Meg Reed

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE • A book that explores the great American novelist and playwright Edna Ferber, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Ficton, whose work was made into many Academy Award-winning movies; the writing of her controversial, international best-selling novel about Texas, and the making of George Stevens’ Academy Award winning epic film of the same name, Giant.

The stupendous publication of Edna Ferber's Giant in 1952 set off a storm of protest over the novel's portrayal of Texas manners, money and mores with oil-rich Texans threatening to shoot, lynch or ban Ferber from ever entering the state again.

In Giant Love, Julie Gilbert writes of the internationally best-selling Ferber, one of the most widely read writers in the first half of the 20th Century – her evolution from mid-west maverick girl-reporter to Pulitzer Prize winning, beloved American novelist, from her want-to-be actress days to becoming Broadway's acclaimed prize-winning playwright whose collaborators – George S. Kauffman and Moss Hart, among them, were, along with Ferber, herself, the most successful playwrights of their time.

Here is the making of an American classic novel and the film that followed in its wake. We see how George Stevens, Academy-Award winning director, wooed the prickly, stubborn Ferber, ultimately getting her to agree to everything including writing, for the first time ever, a draft of a screenplay, to her okaying James Dean for the part of the ranch hand, Jett Rink, something she was dead set against.

Here is the casting of Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean and their backstory triangle of sex and seduction – each becoming a huge star because of the film; the frustrated Stevens trying to direct the instinctive but undisciplined Dean, and the months long landmark filming in the sleepy town of Marfa, Texas, suddenly invaded by a battalion of a film crew and some of the biggest stars in the rising celebrity culture.

a creative and intriguing biography

Giant Love is written by Julie Gilbert, a great-niece of Edna Ferber. Prior to receiving this book I had read her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, So Big, but was unaware of how prolific and successful she was. This book sent me down the rabbit hole exploring Ferber's works and I am so grateful for that!

Gilbert has taken the story of her great-aunt's life, the book she wrote - Giant - and the film adaptation starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and James Dean. I enjoyed the way she knit the entire story together. I was fascinated by the meticulous research Ferber did for the book -- and her other books as well. It was interesting to see the reception she received upon publication, with most of the world loving the book, but Texans feeling angry for her portrayal of their culture.

Ferber was very protective of her characters, especially the female lead, Leslie, who she wrote as a strong, independent and compassionate woman who called out racism. She fought for every detail of how Leslie would be portrayed on screen. This book made me love Ferber.

I also genuinely enjoyed the inside look at 1950s Hollywood. There were a lot of intimate details about the three main actors that allowed me to feel like I knew them better. I particularly loved the relationship between septuagenarian Ferber and the young actor, James Dean. The moments they shared were touching and fun. Gilbert was able to make all of these people relatable, fully-formed humans, instead of the mythical figures from the silver screen.

Since I finished this book I have read Giant, Cimarron, the 3 volumes of Emma McChesney stories and Saratoga Trunk. I will tackle Fanny Herself next. Like Gilbert, I wish her great-aunt's works were more widely read today!

Fascinating documentation of Edna Ferber

Loved the many valid resources the author used to describe the creation of Giant the film.

Good writing

Enjoyed the writing . Well written book. But I kept getting tripped up in the narration. I wasn’t sure if I was listening to the author or the words of Edna Ferber. It was confusing at times and I would have to go back and re-listen to figure out who was speaking. It would have been better if there was more of a vocal difference.

Interesting content, shockingly poor writer

As Edna Ferber's great niece, Julie Gilbert recycles much content from her 1978 biography of Ferber and adds Ferber-less anecdotes about and/or from George Stevens, Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Mercedes McCambridge, Carroll Baker, and many others connected with the making of the 1956 film "Giant." As a writer, Gilbert is a mediocre stylist who loves to use "ironically" incorrectly and constantly resorts to other tired and lazy cliches. Surprising for an allegedly professionally written and edited work, the book frequently strings together unrelated anecdotes without transitions or coherence. If you can tolerate all this, the content is interesting for Gilbert's knowledge of and personal relationship with Ferber and for the results of her research on the making of the film, although Don Graham's 2018 "Giant: Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Edna Ferber, and the Making of a Legendary American Film" is a much more professional, detailed, and satisfying take on the latter.

A remarkable telling of an epic novel and how it made it to the big screen... beautifully told...

Julie Gilbert gives intimate stories and her research is exquisite .. a story worth the telling.. and reading