Joy Callaway is one of Charlotte’s foremost writers of historical fiction. She published her first historical novel, The Fifth Avenue Artists Society, in 2016. Since then, she has brought out several more historical novels, including Secret Sisters (2017), The Grand Design (2022), All the Pretty Places (2023), and What the Mountains Remember (2024), but none of these earlier novels is set in Charlotte. Her latest release, The Star of Camp Greene: A Novel of WWI, is Joy’s first historical novel that is set in her hometown of Charlotte.
The Star of Camp Greene features an ambitious Broadway performer named Calla Connolly. As part of an effort to entertain the troops, she goes on a tour of military training camps, including Camp Greene in Charlotte. Her plan is to put on a show in Camp Greene and then leave for her next performance. However, her plan gets upended. Calla’s predicament is nicely captured in the following blurb provided by the publisher:
Broadway darling Calla Connolly had it all: a rising career on the stage and a loving fiancé, a fellow stage actor. But after his tragic death early in the war, Calla is touring the American training camps, hoping to convince General Pershing to let her tour the French front to cheer the men and honor her fiancé’s memory. But her hopes are dashed when she contracts Spanish flu while performing at Camp Greene.
While convalescing, Calla inadvertently overhears a sensitive Army secret and is ordered to remain at Camp Greene for the duration of the war while her former mentor and rival steals her tour out from under her. Having no choice but to stay at the camp, she becomes the resident performer and forms attachments to several musician soldiers.
When she falls in love with the man responsible for trapping her at camp, the mission she’s sworn to keep secret threatens the men she’s come to care for. Calla is forced to decide what her dreams are worth–and if the future she never expected might only be possible if she lets those dreams go.
The official launch of Joy’s The Star of Camp Greene will take place at Park Road Books on May 8 at 6:30 pm. For more information about this free event, please click on this link: https://www.parkroadbooks.com/event/joy-callaway-discusses-her-new-book-star-camp-greene-annissa-armstrong
For more information about Joy and her novels, please click on the following link: https://www.joycallaway.com/
While preparing to write The Star of Camp Greene, Joy conducted extensive research into the history of Camp Greene. She searched through newspaper archives to find news accounts related to Camp Greene, and she made frequent visits to the archives of the Charlote Mecklenburg Library to locate photographs and other primary sources. The result is a carefully researched novel that captures what life was like in one corner of Storied Charlotte during the First World War.