You Might As Well Live: The Life and Times of Dorothy Parker [Paperback]

John Keats (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 319 pages
• Publisher: Paragon House (September 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0913729493
• ISBN-13: 978-0913729496
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,947,200 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Check Your Sources, April 18, 2005

By 

Jennifer Arnold - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: You Might As Well Live: The Life and Times of Dorothy Parker (Paperback)

John Keats is belittlingly sexist in his treatment of Dorothy Parker in his biography, saying hideous things like, "what they [Parker's friends] failed to realize was that Dorothy Parker was like all other women in one terrifyingly simple respect," without further explanation, and calling his subject "little Miss Parker" throughout. To make matters worse, Keats did not properly check sources, and as a consequence committed grave factual errors in the work. For example, he talks about Dorothy's four years at Miss Dana's finishing school, when Parker only attended the school for a year. The list of mistakes continues.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't buy it!, May 20, 2004

By 

A G Kingston (Rose Park, South Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: You Might As Well Live: The Life and Times of Dorothy Parker (Paperback)

Horribly partial male-chauvanistic telling of Dorothy Parker's life - embarrassingly dated. As Dorothy would have said, this is not a biography to be cast aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force!

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Compassionate Look at a Tragi/Comic Life, April 11, 2000

By 

Kimberley Mitchell "mitchki" (Woodbridge, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: You Might As Well Live: The Life and Times of Dorothy Parker (Paperback)

We learn in this book that Dorothy Parker's great talent was the ability to see both the tragic and comic in any situation simultaneously. She abhorred pretense and skewered pretenders mercilessly, herself included.

During the good times, she fell into bouts of despair and tried to commit suicide a couple of times. During the bad times, later, she drank too much and allied herself with progressive causes, facing the McCarthy inquisition with courage and grace.

This book is at its best when it allows us to feel the constant strain of contradictions in Ms. Parker's life, at its worst when it occasionally strays into preachiness at her excesses, hardly necessary, as the excesses carried with them their own punishments.

All in all, an enlightening glimpse of a thoroughly unique lady.