THE LADY FROM THE BLACK LAGOON

RELEASED OUT NOW! 336 pages | Paperback/ebook

Author Mallory O’meara

Publisher Solaris Books

Even if you’re a fan of Universal horror films, you’ve probably never heard of Milicent Patrick, on whose drawings Creature From The Black Lagoon’s iconic Gill Man was based. That’s due to a massive injustice, which Mallory O’meara here set outs to uncover and correct.

In 1954, Patrick was sent on a promotional tour for the film. This so enraged her department head Bud Westmore (used to taking all the credit), that he made sure she never worked for Universal again. Patrick’s life was remarkable in other ways, too. She grew up on the summer estate of William Randolph Hearst, inspiration for Citizen Kane (where her father was a structural engineer), and was one of Disney’s first female animators.

A good biographer should not block your view of their subject, and on occasion it feels like O’meara is foregrounded too much. The research trail is interesting in itself, and you’ll exult with her when she tracks down a surviving niece. But do we need to know what she has for breakfast? Similarly, while the avowedly intersectional O’meara has good cause to mount her soapbox, this can get a tad repetitious. All that said, this remains an impressively meticulous work of herstory, voiced in spicily acerbic style. Ian Berriman