Lost in the Stacks: Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin

Oh those madcap Jazz Age writers!  The insults fly (Alexander Woollcott to Edna Ferber wearing a tailored suit: “Why, Edna, you look almost like a man.”  “So do you,” she replied), the gin flows and the quips are unending as Marion Meade takes you on a boisterous romp through the 1920s.  Meade chronologically explores the private and public lives of Zelda Fitzgerald, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dorothy Parker and Edna Ferber as they drink, love, laugh, attempt suicide, feud, flee the country, pose for nude pictures, and oh yes, actually write their way through the decade.  Of course underneath the façade of talent and wit lay alcoholism, mental illness, and unrequited love, which lends this highly entertaining and lively book a certain poignancy.