Holy Skirts [Hardcover]

Rene Steinke (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 2005

After running away from home and living a scandalous life in Berlin, the beautiful Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven arrives in New York City with her husband. The marriage soon flounders and Elsa finds herself on her own. An unusual and talented woman, she takes up modelling and sculpting and exhibitionism, become more and more outrageous. She's often arrested for public nudity and shoplifting, but she's so good at jumping from the police wagon that she usually escapes. At the centre of the Dadaist circle, she even transforms herself into a work of art. In love with the artist Marcel Duchamp, she makes him the subject of several of her sculptures and poems, one of which reads "Marcel, Marcel, I love you like hell, Marcel." She's an early version of Madonna or Courtney Love. In addition to telling the story of a fascinating woman, the novel also depicts a time of cataclysmic change--through a world war, the popularization of technology, the advent of the automobile, the proliferation of cities, and enormous changes in the lives women.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Literary Review editor Steinke's second novel (after The Fires) is a lively, sympathetic fictionalized account of the true adventures of Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, a poet, artist's model and friend of Marcel Duchamp whose irrepressible life bordered on the fashionably sordid. Fleeing her burgher home in Swinemünde, Germany, at age 19 for the liberation—and poverty—of Berlin circa 1904, Elsa learns early to lie about her past and dress outrageously (often in male clothing), attracting numerous men who provide entrée to high society. Three husbands determine the direction of her life: the first, August, is an effete, hashish-smoking architect; the second, his best friend, Franz, is a charming, tortured poet and con man who brings Elsa to New York only to desert her; and the last is a German baron who gambles away his fortune and abandons her as well. Yet Elsa is an intrepid heroine who continually rises from her own ashes, muscling her way into artists' parties with bon mots and conversation-stopping "self-apparel pieces." Reading an account of an interior life that is not entirely fictional and not entirely factual can be disorienting, but Steinke shows palpable admiration and respect for her proto-feminist protagonist. This is an intelligent, spirited work that stimulates interest in the baroness's work and times.
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* Novelists are drawn to the lives of artists like moths to a flame, and no writer could ask for a more incendiary protagonist than Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. The provocative German dadaist was but a footnote in the annals of bohemian Greenwich Village until Irene Gammel's revelatory biography, Baroness Elsa (2002), appeared, and now Steinke (The Fires, 1999) attempts to get inside the head of this flamboyant poet and trailblazing performance artist. Steinke's wildly uninhibited Elsa, haunted by family tragedies and three extravagantly disastrous marriages and inspired by industrialization, ends up living hand-to-mouth downstairs from Marcel Duchamp, publishing her poetry in the plucky Little Review, and protesting everything from sexism to censorship by shaving her head and going forth adorned with a birdcage hat (with bird), soup-can brassiere, gum-wrapper jewelry, and a taillight. Sadly, her bravado masks an engulfing loneliness, and the brilliant flame of her boldly improvised life burns out of control. By evoking both the tactile details of her protagonist's precarious existence and her churning psyche, Steinke is able to embrace and transmute biographical fact, creating a fascinating character within a world-altering milieu, and exploring the dark side of creativity. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1 edition (March 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688176941
• ISBN-13: 978-0688176945
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,784,212 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars UNIQUE AND SESUOUS, May 16, 2005

By 

Dorie "a lover of historical fiction" (Mequon, Wisconsin) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Holy Skirts (Hardcover)

One of the best books I've read in the past 6 months! Ms. Steinke's writing is masterful, sensuous and deeply satisfying. Baroness Elsa is unique, artistic, intelligent and decades ahead of her time in her writing and self adornment. While reading of her life and times the world of 1920's Greenwich Village is so well described as to place the reader in the streets with it's outrageous scenes, characters and "signs of the times". What a time to be an artist, a German one at that, trying to reach out to people to understand your poetry and self. Being from Wisconsin with students at the University of Wisconsin where copies of the Little Review are stored, I am anxious to pursue looking at copies which should shed additional light on this character.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it. It is very literary and heavily descriptive and should appeal to readers of such historical fiction as Middlesex, Crimson Petal and the White and Master Butcher's Singing Club.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Artistic Mind, April 25, 2005

By 

J. Mackin (cambridge, ma) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Holy Skirts (Hardcover)

Reinke's fictionalized account of the Baroness Elsa's life is hard to put down. The writing in the book only highlights the charming character that Reinke has brought to life - showing that Elsa needed little help in showcasing her own brilliance. Though largely ignored by history (I don't know many people who read her poem's in school), she led an amazing life. The book jacket calls her a proto punk, which I would agree with, if you take away all the negativity that surrounds such an image. Elsa herself is a contradiction. Throughout her life, she remained strangely naive, in regards to both men and women, but she also created a sophisticated persona, one that masked a lonely young woman who was still reeling from the loss of her mother, the one person that seemed to understand what made Elsa Elsa.

Besides a wonderful main character, Reinke has brought to life some of the members of the Dadaist circle, giving a glimpse into the imagined mind of Marchel Duchamp and a slightly lecherous and leering Man Ray. But it's Elsa determination to live her artistic life, to live as she feels is true to herself, that is most clearly recognized in the book and it is one that makes Elsa so unique not only to her time but to ours.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A precursor to the Dada Movement, March 15, 2005

By 

Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Holy Skirts (Hardcover)

Steinke's novel is a considerable achievement, a careful balancing of historical fact and fiction, the life of Baroness Elsa von Fretag-Loringhoven, a walking example of the Dada movement in the New York art scene.

Eccentric even as a young girl, Elsa Ploetz runs away from her home in Swinemunde, Germany, to Berlin, where she gets her first job on the stage of the Wintergarten Cabaret. Her mother has died in an asylum and, unable to endure her new stepmother, Elsa seeks her fortune in the city, around 1907. Elsa revels in her sexuality, a favorite of the men who see her onstage and entertain her after hours.

Ironically, it is Elsa's liberal attitude about men that brings her the most difficulty. Indiscriminate, she goes from man to man, enjoying the blush of youthful sensuality, her body tingling with expectations after each new amorous adventure: "I can never bow before men. I can only fling myself." Drawn to an assortment of males, believing their promises and suffering the consequences, Elsa is unable to control her romantic fancies, even when reality strikes. It is simply Elsa's nature, this open-hearted acceptance of possibilities; Steinke captures this unique aspect of the woman's personality perfectly.

Elsa's first marriage is to architect August Lydell, but she is a virago to him; he is afraid of what she might take from his creative spirit, unable to consummate the marriage. Eventually Elsa marries poet Franz Trove, pair touring Europe, as he follows his muse. World War I threatens and the couple moves to New York. Elsa writes her own poetry while living with a dissatisfied husband who finally abandons her. Then Elsa meets the most meaningful man in her life, the Baron Joseph von Freytag-Loringhoven, her soul mate. The Baron, a gambler, hopes to redeem his fortune in Germany while Elsa waits for him in New York and it is there, alone, that she makes her mark on the Greenwich Village society of artists and sycophants.

Elsa fashions garments from the oddities she discovers when wandering the city streets, assembling a series of outrageous outfits, proclaiming herself an artist/poet. She gradually claims the notice of the Village avant-garde, unafraid to shock the pretentiousness of that society, whether wearing gentlemen's suits or a bustle with a blinking taillight. Ever more extreme in behavior and dress, Elsa becomes a friend and confidant of Marcel Duchamp and through him, finds entry into the rarified art circles. Filmed nude by Man Ray, Elsa is beyond the cutting edge of the New York scene.

Steinke inhabits Elsa to the marrow of her bones, intuiting thoughts, dreams and motivations of this character. In a time of extraordinary inventions, the Baroness achieves notoriety while chasing fame, a fringe-dweller of repute in the art world. From youth in Germany to the mean streets of New York that Elsa wanders in a poetic fugue, Steinke has created a memorable portrait of an eccentric and a visionary, a new woman in a new century. Luan Gaines/2005.