Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin

Writers Running Wild in the Twenties

By: Marion Meade

Narrated by: Lorna Raver

This is an exuberant group portrait of four extraordinary writers, Zelda Fitzgerald, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dorothy Parker, and Edna Ferber, whose loves, lives, and literary endeavors captured the spirit of the 1920s.

Marion Meade re-creates the aura of 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, unconventional behavior.

The literary heroines in Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin did what they wanted, said what they thought. They drank gallons of cocktails and knew how to have fun in New York, the Riviera, and Hollywood, where they met and played with all the people worth knowing. They kicked open the door for 20th-century female writers and set a new model for every woman trying to juggle the serious issues of economic independence, political power, and sexual freedom.

In a style and tone that perfectly captures the jazzy rhythms and desperate gaiety that defined the era, Meade tells the individual stories of Parker, Fitzgerald, Millay, and Ferber, traces the intersections of their lives, and describes the men, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edmund Wilson, Harold Ross, and Robert Benchley, who influenced them, loved them, and sometimes betrayed them. She describes their social and literary triumphs (Parker's Round Table witticisms appeared almost daily in the newspapers and Ferber and Millay won Pulitzer Prizes) and writes movingly of the penances they paid: the crumbled love affairs, abortions, depression, lost beauty, nervous breakdowns, and, finally, overdoses and even madness.

A vibrant mixture of literary scholarship, social history, and gossip, Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin is a rich evocation of a period that continues to intrigue and captivate listeners.

©2004 Marion Meade (P)2004 Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"An enjoyable and informative read." (Publishers Weekly)
"Reading Meade's book is like looking at a photo album while listening to a witty insider reminisce about the images. Her writing is bright, her language charged with gritty details....Instead of portraying them as austere literary figures, Meade makes the women seem like part of the family." (San Francisco Chronicle)

Fantastic

I love books like this. Getting behind the scenes of a crazy time. The tone of the book pulled me in right away. Highly Recommend.

Fun Story and Cautionary Tale

For those who like the 1920's, this book was a fun ride with the major figures of the literati. It is also a tale of excess that becomes clear in the last chapters. A good read for fans of these authors.

Interesting read I recommend it

I recommend this for anyone interested in Scott or Zelda Fitzgerald (the most interesting), Edna Furber, Dorothy Parker, Edna St. Vincent Milay. All part of American history each with their own worthwhile story.

Fascinating story difficult to follow

I chose this book as a followup to the Amazon series Z. It follows the story of each individual woman, year by year throughout the twenties. With the exception of the Fitzgeralds, I had little, to no knowledge of the other writers. Initially, each story was difficult to follow, but as the characters became more familiar, the book moved along very nicely. It was a lovely introduction to the wit of Dorothy Parker.

A lot of fun!

This book was a romp through the 20's with some of it's more interesting characters. It's fascinating to find out how very human and fragile legends really are. This group lived on the edge but they had the problems of ordinary people too. What makes it so much fun is to see it all through their creative and usually very humorous points of view!

Brilliant!

I couldn’t stop listening to this, hugely entertaining as well as informative and very well written.

Ended up enjoying it

It took me a little while to adjust to this book partially, I think, because it reads more like fiction than a non-fiction. Also, there are so many people that someone of a newer generation may not recognize names like Edna Ferber, etc. But once I got started, I enjoyed this book very much... especially the parts about Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald. There were so parts that are just too funny... like about F. Scott Fitzgerald being chronically obsessed with his small ****. I thought this was a splendid book and well-narrated.

What a creative mind!

Love how this book was written. It was so fun getting to know these infamous writers. Great narration too, added 1920's spunk to it. I was thoroughly entertained by this light and amusing read, and I got to see one of my favorite poets, Edna St. Vincent Millay, in a biographic way.

Fascinating Intertwined Lives

What a romp! A delightfully informative four part Biography that clips right along as fast as Gatsby’s yellow car. Worth the time in every way.

Entertaining and depressing

This is a rollicking survey of notable American women writers in the 1920s (and a bit into the 1930s). The author appears to have done an amazing amount of research and the material is very well presented. However, at a certain point, maybe halfway through the book, it becomes apparent that most of these women, and their male colleagues, were hopeless alcoholics. The recounting of their alcohol-soaked lives becomes, for me, rather depressing. It's not the author's fault; she's telling it like it is. It's just not a very appetizing reality. Maybe that was how it was in those days for most intellectuals and artists. Too bad. Still, it's a good read and a good survey of an interesting group. Just be prepared for a lot of drunkenness and disfunction.