All About the Jazz (and Women)

Sexy, jazzy, and more than just a little bit troubled--women like Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dorthy Parker, Zelda Fitzgerald, and Edna Ferber made their marks on the world of literature in the 1920's. In Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin, Marion Meade follows the triumphs and failures, the romances and break-ups--along with all those boughts with depression and madness. What was the price for such talents as these--for women who ran wild in the 1920's?

Taken one-by-one, these women led extraordinary lives. They took society by storm, seemingly unafraid or undeterred by the hard knocks life seemed to continually throw their way. Together, they are much more. In some small way, they re-wrote the literary map, helping to usher in a new way of thinking and writing.

If they have now slipped into the cracks of literary history, it is not from lack of trying to create an irrepressible bang. Perhaps these women have just been waiting on the fringes for such a book as Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin to resurrect their legends and make their literature live again.