Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation
*Starred Review* As the 1920s dawned, the Western world anticipated a “decade of change,” British dance critic and biographer Mackrell observes, and “that promise was especially tantalizing for women.” Hence the convention-blasting flappers, intent on taking charge of every aspect of their lives, from hairstyles and hemlines to sex and careers. Mackrell portrays, with vivid facts, sexual candor, and incisive analysis, six intrepid, stylish, headline-grabbing women artists who exemplify the flapper revolution. Beautiful and pampered Lady Diana Cooper cast privilege aside and became a daring and revered actor. Intransigent, bookish Nancy Cunard, the daughter of a British lord and a coldhearted, wealthy American, found a spiritual holdfast in African American culture. Exiled from her luxurious St. Petersburg life, Tamara de Lempicka transformed herself into an art deco portrait painter of Paris’ glamorous elite. Southern daredevil Tallulah Bankhead took to the stage and ignited a rabid fan base among working-class women. Celebrity flapper Zelda Fitzgerald fueled her husband, F. Scott’s, fiction. Bewitching performer Josephine Baker of St. Louis galvanized Paris as an erotic and electrifying embodiment of the Jazz Age. For all their grit, fire, and adoration, however, each of these audacious women found that the flapper life was unsustainable and gender equality but a dream. Avidly researched and deeply inquisitive, Mackrell’s prodigious group portrait is spectacularly dramatic and thought-provoking. --Donna Seaman