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Book Review of Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin : Writers Running Wild in the Twenties

Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin : Writers Running Wild in the Twenties
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Helpful Score: 4


Covering the decade from 1920 - 1930, Meade concentrates on Zelda Fitzgerald, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dorothy Parker and Edna Ferber, exploring their lives at the height of their careers (although some would question Fitzgerald's inclusion, she was instrumental in assisting her husband with his books and wrote stories on her own often credited to both). My complaint about the book is that the style makes you feel like you are attending a lecture given in a monotone voice. There is little cadence to her writing. My biggest issue, however, is that Meade wrote a biography of Dorothy Parker (What Fresh Hell is This) and the sections in this book dealing with Parker are basically lifted verbatim from that biography. It is laziness on the author's part and if you have read both it sticks out dramatically.