Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?
by Marion Meade
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Book Summary Information
Author: Marion MeadeEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1989-03-03
ISBN: 0140116168
Number of pages: 458
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?
Book Review: The Essential Dorothy Parker
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an incredibly thorough biography of Dorothy Parker, one of the founding members of the Algonquin Round Table. It manages to chronicle her extremely quirky persona in such extreme detail that you may never need to read another account of her career and life.
While thought of today as a writer who is most generally known for her satire and poetry, she managed to cover a lot of ground in her day. She was a successful screenwriter, magazine editor, lyricist, short story writer, and even wrote a play with her friend George S. Kauffman.
Her personal life was every bit as interesting as her professional one. She had a miserable early life as the daughter of a jewish father and christian mother, who died before she turned five. A detested stepmother and her father packed her off to a catholic school from which she was eventually booted when her verbal wit became her undoing. While plugging away at her literary ventures, she had doubts about her talents. She was prone to depression and for much of her life had an ongoing flirtation with suicide. She was married unsuccessfully three times to two men. Her second and third husband was reputedly bisexual Campbell, a one-time actor turned screenwriter. Their marriages resulted in an on-off relationship until Campbell's suicide in 1963. There were love affairs that ultimately failed, abortions, an increased dependency on alcohol, and an association with socialist causes that resulted in Parker's blacklisting in the '50's.
While this book might be considered scholarly because of the intense research and documentation that went into it, it really manages to avoid analysis of her work and sticks to Parker's life and her relationships. Her 'buddy list' reads like a 'who's who' of early 20th century american writers and humorists such as Robert Benchley, S.J. Pearlman, George S. Kauffman, Robert E. Sherwood, Franklin Pierce Adams, and Alexander Woollcott.
I don't recommend this book if you have only a passing fancy for Parker as you can get the basic facts from a lot of sources. However, if you are truly interested in Parker or this era of writing and its arrow quick barbs, you will get a lot out of reading it. It is a well-constructed book and Meade has managed to put a lot of information into it.
Summary of Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?
This edition features a new afterword by Marion Meade.
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