America's fabled "Left Bank," Greenwich Village in New York, has been described, lauded, idealized and immortalized in numerous books -- but here, for the first time, author Robert Schulman tells the story of perhaps the Village's most vibrant citizen, the redoubtable Romany Marie Marchand, the acknowledged Earth Mother of the whole scene. From 1914 until the late 1950s she literally set the table for the 20th century's American bohemian elite by running a series of taverns in the Village. To these places came Buckminster Fuller, Will and Ariel Durant, e.e. cummings, Theodore Dreiser, John Sloan, Burl Ives, Zero Mostel, Edgar Varese, Brancusi, Isamu Noguchi, Diego Rivera and hundreds of other shining lights of literature, art, theater and academia. At Marie's taverns they found welcoming, fertile spaces where ideas took root. "You know what I am to them?" Marie said. "I'm a legend. I'm an idea. Many times, when such people get together, the thing they do is to talk about me and to reminisce. Where they started, how their work began. Oh yes, they'll say, was that in Marie's Washington Square place, or in the one on Christopher Street? They can scarcely speak of their past without bringing in one of my centers, for that is what my places were -- not so much restaurants as centers for people to get off the edge of the ordinary." Derived from the exhaustive interviews conducted by Marie's nephew, prize-winning journalist Bob Schulman, first begun in the 1940s and finally complete, Romany Marie: The Queen of Greenwich Village offers a fascinating and colorful glimpse into the true Bohemia by one of its most influential members.
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About the Author
Bob Schulman has been a newsman since his student days at New York and Columbia Universities. During his growing up years in New York City, he made many visits to the various Greenwich Village bistros where his maternal aunt, Romany Marie Marchand, held forth. Schulman was a newspaper reporter and feature writer in St. Louis, and a staff correspondent in Chicago for Time, Life and Sports Illustrated magazines. In Seattle he had responsibility for news in four states and Alaska. This was followed by a prize-winning television documentary career in the Northwest. In the late 1960s Schulman then shifted to reporting and commentary for the Louisville, Kentucky newspapers and TV-radio stations owned by the Bingham family. In that capacity he garnered a national award for one year's best TV editorial, and for eight years wrote a newspaper column that was among the nation's first in press criticism. For 10 years he was co-host of "Good Authority," a weekly program on Louisville-area radio commenting on regional happenings. His previously published works include John Sherman Cooper: Global Kentuckian. Schulman lives in Louisville with his wife, Louise.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A queen indeed,
By
This review is from: Romany Marie: The Queen of Greenwich Village (Hardcover)
I'm usually not a reader of biographies, but I was immediately drawn to the philosophies of Romany Marie.
Upon attending a book signing presented by the author, and her nephew, Bob Schulman, I was completely engrossed by Marie and her life story. She is clearly presented as a fascinating individual with a passion for those seeking enlightenment. And for these people, she created her "centers" in New York's Greenwich Villiage. Places for those who were "searching", creative outlets for individuals stiffled by the more conservative areas of the city. Mr. Schulman's enthusiasm for Marie and her accomplishments was apparent not only at his book signing, but throughout each and every page of the book itself. Starting from Marie's days as a young girl and following through her immigration to America, marriage, her many "centers", this biography covers with much detail not only Marie's life, but also many of her patrons. Mr. Schulman makes this read all the more fascinating by allowing Marie to tell a great deal of her story in her own words. While he begins each new chapter, the story then changes to Marie's point of view; written from the many audio tapes Mr. Schulman made of their interviews together. I encourage all the artists, writers, musicians, and anyone else with a passion for creativity as well as those seeking the "bigger picture" to invest some time in Romany Marie. You just might find in her, someone who can relate.
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