American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White: The Birth of the "It" Girl and the Crime of the Century
by Paula Uruburu
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Book Summary Information
Author: Paula UruburuEdition: Hardcover
Published: 2008-05-01
ISBN: 1594489939
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
Book Reviews of American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White: The Birth of the "It" Girl and the Crime of the Century
Book Review: Fascinating story
Summary: 4 Stars
As a fan of architecture, I was well aware of Stanford White (of McKim, Mead and White) before I first read of his affair with Evelyn Nesbit and subsequent murder by her husband in E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime. It is a startlingly tragic tale, so it was with much interest that I read this more complete telling of the story. On the whole, I felt that Uruburu did a good, but not great job telling it.
There were certain events in the book that just didn't seem to add up, and I see from some of the more critical reviews here, that there may be indeed be certain information that the author either omitted or did not find in her research. For instance, there are nagging inconsistencies regarding Evelyn's financial status throughout the book, but particularly after the murder trial. She is said to be left penniless, but then we learn that her son attends boarding school. How is that possible?
It is more believable that Evelyn knew that the Thaw family would pay her handsomely for her testimony and that she struck a bargain with them. After all, the Thaws had made a career of paying people to keep quiet about Harry's deviant behavior and it would have been clear to them that she held the key to Harry's fate. Evelyn herself was smart enough, and she certainly disliked the Thaws enough, to have realized the gold mine at her feet.
I had the feeling that Uruburu was always trying to find elements of Evelyn's story that fit most cozily into a feminist-type agenda and perhaps this is why there are so many places in the book where the pieces don't quite add up. Evelyn is mostly portrayed as a victim of the times and of the men in her life, even though it is clear that she understood at least some of the power she held over them.
On the whole, however, I enjoyed Uruburu's writing style and her vivid descriptions of life at the turn of the last century. And I came away knowing far more about the compelling characters whose lives came together in such a terribly tragic collision of events.
Summary of American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White: The Birth of the "It" Girl and the Crime of the Century
The scandalous story of America?s first supermodel, sex goddess, and modern celebrity, Evelyn Nesbit, the temptress at the center of Stanford White?s famous murder, whose iconic life story reflected all the paradoxes of America?s Gilded Age.Known to millions before her sixteenth birthday in 1900, Evelyn Nesbit was the most photographed woman of her era, an iconic figure who set the standard for female beauty. Women wanted to be her. Men just wanted her. When her life of fantasy became all too real, and her jealous millionaire husband, Harry K. Thaw, killed her lover?celebrity architect Stanford White, builder of the Washington Square Arch and much of New York City?she found herself at the center of the ?Crime of the Century? and the popular courtroom drama that followed?a scandal that signaled the beginning of a national obsession with youth, beauty, celebrity, and sex.
The story of Evelyn Nesbit is one of glamour, money, romance, sex, madness, and murder, and Paula Uruburu weaves all of these elements into an elegant narrativethat reads like the best fiction? only it?s all true. American Eve goes far beyond just literary biography; it paints a picture of America as it crossed from the Victorian era into the modern, foreshadowing so much of our contemporary culture today.
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