Publishers Weekly
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Letts's engrossing latest (following Family Planning) is a behind-the-scenes tale of the late L. Frank Baum, author of the The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and his widow, Maud. Maud is in her 70s in 1938 when she learns of the Judy Garland-starring film being made, and recalls a long-ago promise she made Frank to take care of Dorothy. The story goes back to 1880 when Maud, the daughter of a women's suffragist, attends Cornell. Maud's roommate, Josie, is Frank's cousin, who serves as a matchmaker for the couple. Although she's determined to focus on her education, Maud is drawn to Frank, who has a fledgling theater company. Despite her mother's disappointment, Maud withdraws from college to marry. Maud reminisces about her life with Frank as she befriends young Judy; Judy confides in Maud about missing her deceased father, about older men's advances, and about being coerced into taking diet pills to remain thin. In addition to being Judy's confidant, Maud vocalizes the necessity of keeping the film adaptation true to Frank's work. Letts expertly illuminates the true story behind the tale beloved by so many readers through history, but best of all is the wonderful depiction of Maud herself. This is a crowd-pleasing, thoroughly satisfying novel. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Maud Gage Baum, the wife of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz author, L. Frank Baum, is the focus of this story of how the famous novel and its film adaptation came to be. Letts (The Eighty-Dollar Champion, 2011) begins the couple's story in the 1880s when Maud, daughter of a prominent suffragette, drops out of Cornell to marry Frank, who at the time runs a floundering theater company. Maud and Frank struggle for years to make ends meet as Frank, a starry-eyed dreamer, proves less than adept at earning a steady income to support Maud and their four sons. Alternating chapters set in 1938 tell of Maud's arrival on set as the book is adapted for the big screen, and of her concern for the film's young star, Judy Garland, victim of an overbearing mother and lecherous studio executives. While some scenes involving Maud and Judy feel implausible, Maud is a fascinating character, and this is a poignant, absorbing tale of the life and love story that led to the creation of a beloved classic.--Martha Waters Copyright 2019 Booklist

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The story behind the story that became the legendary movie The Wizard of Oz.Letts (The Perfect Horse, 2016, etc.) builds her historical novel around Maud Gage Baum, the high-spirited wife of L. Frank Baum, who wrote the original Wizard of Oz books. In one of two intercut narratives, the 77-year-old Maud, who'd exerted a strong influence on her late husband, appears on the set of the movie in 1938; there, she encounters 16-year-old Judy Garlandcast as Dorothyamong others. The second narrative opens in Fayetteville, New York, in 1871 and traces Maud's life from age 10: her girlhood as the daughter of an ardent suffragette; her brief time at Cornell Universityshe was one of the first women admitted there; her early marriage to Baum, an actor at the time; and the births of their four sons. Frank, a dreamer, was not so talented at making money, and the family endured a hardscrabble, peripatetic life until he scored as a writer. This part of the story is dramatic and sometimes-poignant, though it goes on a bit. (Read carefully, and you can spot some elements that made their ways into the books and movie.) The Hollywood part is more entertaining even if some of it feels implausible. Maud did meet Judy Garland and attend the premiere of the film in real life. But in the book she tries to protect and nurture Garland, who was at the mercy of her abusive stage mother and the filmmakers and was apparently fed amphetamines to keep her weight down. And while it's true the movie's best-loved song, "Somewhere over the Rainbow," was almost cut at the last minute, the book has Maud persuading studio chief L.B. Mayer to keep it in.Much is made in these pages about the power of make-believe, and while the book falls short of magical, it's still an absorbing read. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.