A wintry Manhattan, 1927, finds Edna Ferber preparing for Γ’β¬Εthe Ferber season on Broadway.Γ’β¬Β The bestselling author has two shows opening back to back. On December 27, the musical adaptation of Show Boat by Oscar Hammerstein and Jerome Kern. December 28: The Royal Family, her comedy of manners written with George KaufmanΓ’β¬βEthel Barrymore has pondered legal action for the playΓ’β¬β’s depiction of theatrical royalty like, say, the Barrymores. Why does Edna miss both opening nights? She has something else on her mindΓ’β¬βmurder. Edna has been mentoring some talented, young black writers and actors who are part of the heady milieu of the Roaring TwentiesΓ’β¬β’ Harlem RenaissanceΓ’β¬βthe jazz clubs, the faddish dances, the frenzyΓ’β¬βand the lively pulse of Broadway that entices these talented young Γ’β¬ΕNegroesΓ’β¬Β to push for a downtown strut, for mainstream recognition for Negro voices and talents. Only recently have Negroes been allowed on downtown stages with Whites. Edna knows poet Langston Hughes, but sheΓ’β¬β’s most intrigued by unknowns. Her housekeeperΓ’β¬β’s young son, Waters Turpin. Bella Davenport, a beautiful vamp. Ellie Payne, a jazz singer. Freddy Holder, a rabble-rouser. Lawson Hicks, Bella's handsome boyfriend. Taken by some fiction by the boyishly handsome Roddy Parsons, a charismatic man most recently in the Γ’β¬ΕNegro chorus"" of Show Boat, she heads to Harlem to take him to lunch, only to discover heΓ’β¬β’s been stabbed to death in his bed. Who killed this promising young man? Recognizing her own fatal attraction to brash Jed Harris, the young producer of The Royal Family, a darling of the Broadway set but a notoriously vain and cruel man, Edna includes him in a pool of suspects. Driven by curiosity, anger, and her sense of justice, Edna Ferber sets out to chase down the murderer rather than attend her playsΓ’β¬β’ opening nights.
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