A review by judyward
Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin: Writers Running Wild in the Twenties by Marion Meade

3.0

This biography of four women writers, Edna Ferber, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dorothy Parker, and Zelda Fitzgerald, in the years from 1920 to 1930, weaves together their lives and personalities. These women had four different experiences, lived in four different worlds, and enjoyed four different levels of commercial success, but each of them carved out literary careers that would benefit generations of female authors who would follow them. Written as a series of vignettes, this book is engaging and interesting, but, unfortunately, it tends to focus on the darker side of each woman's experience. Many of the anecdotes highlights failed relationships, illnesses, alcoholism, suicide attempts, and mental illnesses. The book would have benefitted from tighter editing, but it is an introduction to four women whose lives are detailed more fully in other biographies.