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Editorial Review Book Description
In her exuberant new work, BOBBED HAIR AND BATHTUB GIN, Marion Meade presents a portrait of four extraordinary writers--Dorothy Parker, Zelda Fitzgerald, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Edna Ferber--whose loves, lives, and literary endeavors embodied the spirit of the 1920s.
Capturing the jazz rhythms and desperate gaiety that defined the era, Meade gives us Parker, Fitzgerald, Millay, and Ferber, traces the intersections of their lives, and describes the men (F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edmund Wilson, Harold Ross, and Robert Benchley) who influenced them, loved them, and sometimes betrayed them. Here are the social and literary triumphs (Parker's Round Table witticisms appeared almost daily in the newspapers and Ferber and Millay won Pulitzer Prizes) and inevitably the penances each paid: crumbled love affairs, abortions, depression, lost beauty, nervous breakdowns, and finally, overdoses and even madness.
These literary heroines did what they wanted, said what they thought, living wholly in the moment. They kicked open the door for twentieth-century women writers and set a new model for every woman trying to juggle the serious issues of economic independence, political power, and sexual freedom. Meade recreates the excitement, romance, and promise of the 1920s, a decade celebrated for cultural innovation--the birth of jazz, the beginning of modernism--and social and sexual liberation, bringing to light, as well, the anxiety and despair that lurked beneath the nonstop partying and outrageous behavior.
A vibrant mixture of literary scholarship, social history, and scandal, BOBBED HAIR AND BATHTUB GIN is a rich evocation of a period that will forever intrigue and captivate us. ... Read more Customer Reviews (18) 
Strong on Detail; Light on Analysis
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 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.
Slightly Superficial But Extremely Engaging
With BOBBED HAIR AND BATHTUB GIN writer Marion Meade takes the reader on a decade-long tour of the lives of four women who helped make the 1920s roar: Edna Ferber (1895-1968); Zelda Sayer Fitzgerald (1900-1948); Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950); and Dorothy Parker (1893-1967.)Although all four were distinctly different, all four shared certain traits.They were of a generation of women who considered themselves "emancipated." Generally based in New York City, all four proved globetrotters to at least some extent.And all four were writers, and their work was shaped by the decade just as it shaped the decade in turn.
The 1920s saw Edna Ferber rise from the status of a commercial hack to the critically lauded author of such novels as SO BIG and SHOW BOAT and co-author of such plays as THE ROYAL FAMILY.Determinedly independent, Ferber's character would cast an even longer shadow than her works, setting a pattern for single, hard-working, career women that would last decades.Zelda Sayer Fitzgerald, wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald, was Ferber's polar opposite: a woman whose career was marriage but who didn't feel it should crimp her style.Along with husband Scott, she would party her way into self-destruction--and provide significant inspiration to Fitzgerald's novels as well.As the 1920s passed, Zelda would discover a gift for prose and publish several short works, but mental illness began to claim her as the decade came to a close.
Edna St. Vincent Millay was a critic's darling who--when she wasn't writing poetry--spent much of the decade sleeping with any one, male or female, who appealed to her.As well known for her personal charm and eccentricity as for her work, Millay endured numerous difficulties in the decade before emerging as America's most highly regarded poet and then, rather perversely, find critical reaction began to turn against her in the face of works by the likes of T.S. Eliot.And then, of course, there is the truly legendary Dorothy Parker, who began the decade as a drama critic and slowly rose to fame through her remarkably funny and acid poetry.A truly dark figure, like Zelda Fitzgerald and Millay she too would struggle with a host of inner demons ranging from alcohol to drugs to bad relationships.
These four women, their lovers, husbands, publishers, and associates crisscross throughout the book in an interesting counterpoint.The result is always readable, always entertaining, but it does contain certain flaws.Although Meade does provide background and does give notes as to what became of them in later years, her story begins with 1920 and stops with 1930; there is little context.That said, the portraits involved are somewhat superficial; all four of these women are worthy of stand-alone biographies, and indeed all but Ferber have received major, widely available, and well-received biographies.
That said, however, BOBBED HAIR AND BATHTUB GIN is an enjoyable book that does indeed seem to capture a feel for the 1920s, a decade in which the sky seemed the limit for women, the arts, society, and indeed the entire nation.Although they were hardly the only noted women of the era, Edna Ferber, Zelda Fitzgerald, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Dorothy Parker were in many ways indicative of the decade--and this is a wild and very entertaining romp through their early successes and failures.Recommended.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
Vivid Portrait
A wonderful view into the lives of women writers in the 1920's focusing mainly on Edna Ferber, Zelda Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker and Edna St. Vincent Millay.The writing is wonderful, easy to follow, and it almost reads like a novel itself.A great introduction to the biographies of these ladies, Meade doesn't weight the account down with esoteric references to peripheral literary characters.Her focus is sharp and vivid, and I liked that she organized events chronologically, breaking up the chapters by year.She paints these women so multi-dimensionally that I found myself missing them, like characters in a great novel, once I had finished the book.
Flappers Gone Wild
A breezy, fast read which skims the surface of Prohibition Days.If you enjoy learning about that crazy time before Wall Street "laid an egg"you will like this book.
Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin
Extremely well written, as is all Meade's stuff, and you'll walk away considerably wider of eye over these lives of recently enfranchised famous flappers learning how to deal with their new status as full members of society. Some of them did not deal well.
Meade also wrote a great bio of Eleanor of Aquitaine.
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