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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Utterly fabulous fresco of a fascinating era, November 15, 2005
This review is from: Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin: Writers Running Wild in the Twenties (Paperback)
I loved this book. I don't usually like biographies (they're all the same--someone is born, becomes famous, dies, etc) but this group bio of Edna Ferber, Zelda Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, and Edna St. Vincent Millay totally captured my imagination. It's organized by year, and the storytelling jumps from woman to woman in a way that creates much suspense and anticipation. Meade makes each woman seem so three-dimensional, they don't just leap off the page--I could swear I even smelled Dotty Parker's Chypre perfume and taste Zelda's gin blossoms and highballs. This book would make a great gift for any one who loves biography, the Roaring 20s, or any of the writers in question. The large number of cameo appearances by other writers, bohemians, and Round Tablers give the book a wider appeal. As a recovering English major, I feel strongly that anyone who lists "The Great Gatsby" or "The Sun Also Rises" as his favorite book should get a copy as well, if only for medicinal purposes!
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Take a Trip Back to the Twenties, June 2, 2004
Marion Meade's new book Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin is like manna from heaven for aficionados of the Roaring Twenties. Seventeen years ago Meade wrote What Fresh Hell is This? It remains the definitive Dorothy Parker biography; now she expands on the 10 most exciting years of Parker's life, along with Edna Ferber, Zelda Fitzgerald and Edna St. Vincent Millay. The subtitle of Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin is "Writer's Running Wild in the Twenties" and it is an exciting read that zeroes in on one decade in the lives of the four women and those close to them. There are other, longer, and deeper biographies and autobiographies of the quartet, but this book digs beneath the surface about what made them so unique, powerful and passionate about what they did. Meade had a real challenge before her. The reader knows how all four will end up post-1930. The task was to shine a spotlight on the crucial years when all four came into their own and were either on their way up, or down, professionally or personally. Some of the tale is humorous, often tragic, but always fascinating. Anyone who's read about these women before is sure to learn something new that bigger books might have overlooked. If you're reading Bobbed Hair and happen to be a lover of writers, history, old books and the theatre, then you might know what's around the corner for all of these women. The stock market crash of 1929 is looming. The Depression is on its way. Prohibition will end. Adolph Hitler is coming to power. And yet the book brings these women and their cohorts so vividly to life, like it was only yesterday that they were creating new material and turning up in the gossip columns.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Strong on Detail; Light on Analysis, January 27, 2008
This review is from: Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin: Writers Running Wild in the Twenties (Paperback)
An engaging, entertaining read by a skillful writer. . .but if you want a thorough, complex picture of these four women (Parker, Ferber, Z. Fitzgerald, Millay) and their circles, you'll be better off reading a full-scale biography of each, one that places them in historical and literary context. This book's final paragraph sums up both its strengths and its shortcomings -- the ending is crisp and breezy, but it offers no thoughtful conclusions. Instead, it basically says (and I'm paraphrasing), "and so the 1920s ended and passed into history and the people described here went on and lived the rest of their lives." What we have overall is a well-phrased and smoothly-organized collection of largely unanalyzed details.
If you knew nothing about these writers beyond what you read here, you'd conclude that most of leading artistic lights of 1920s New York were shallow, self-centered, silly sots, and you'd wonder how on earth they managed to write anything at all, let alone stuff that is held up decades later as examples of significant art. (The only person who doesn't seem to have been an exasperating wastrel is Ferber, and you could easily come away from "Bobbed Hair" believing that her work is the least worth reading.) If it's really true that these largely despicable, aimless people are nonetheless artists worth our continued time and attention, then I wish "Bobbed Hair" had spent more time examining and explicating this paradox. As it is, we end up with details, details everywhere and not a point to make.
But then again, perhaps I'm trying to turn this book into something it's not: it's not a scholarly biography, never claimed to be, and doesn't have to be. On its own terms, it's quite fun. So if you want a dishy tiptoe through the 1920s tulips, buy this book. If you want context and in-depth analysis, buy something else.
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