David M. Earle

None of the 13 short stories which originally appeared in magazines in the 1920’s and early 30’s is “elevated literature,” but I enjoyed them very much, and really appreciated the effort from Pushkin Press to collect work from the likes of Zelda Fitzgerald and her husband F. Scott, Dorothy Parker, Vina Delmar, Zora Neale Hurston, and Anita Loos. Taken together they really capture the spirit of an age, when flappers defied the older generation and moved the needle of progress forward for women, on top of having fun.

As the introduction explains it, “unlike the suffragettes before them, flappers were more interested in social and sexual equality than political.” I also love how the introduction explains how a movement “reductively identified with the white middle class drew inspiration from the jazz culture and perceived joyousness of African American society,” and how the collection reflects this, including several black authors whose only outlet for their work was in newspapers.

My favorite stories:
- The Clever Little Fool, by Dana Ames, from Snappy Stories, 6/15/26
- Bernice Bobs Her Hair, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, from Saturday Evening Post, 5/1/20
- Common Meter, by Rudoph Fisher, from Pittsburgh Courier, 2/8/30
- Night Club, by Katharine Brush, from Harper’s Magazine, 9/27. Brush would later write the novel that was made into the pre-Code classic Red-Headed Woman (1931)
- Not the Marrying Kind, by Dawn Powell, from Snapper Stories, 3/27
- Thou Shalt Not Killjoy, by Vina Delmar, from Snappy Stories, 12/20/23, my favorite of all, which quotes from a spicy fictional magazine, Hot Tamale, and satirizes conservative censors. Delmar was the author of Bad Girl (1928) and later the screenwriter for The Awful Truth (1937), which earned her an Oscar nomination.
- Monkey Junk, by Zora Neale Hurston, from Pittsburgh Courier, 3/5/27
- Why Girls Go South, by Anita Loos, from Harper’s Bazaar, 1/26, which was simply brilliant, and featured shifting attitudes towards over generations and an openly lesbian character.

Overall, great stuff, with no duds. Lots of slang and fun dialogue from the era, and wonderful to get this little window into the past.

Just a couple of quotes:
On aging, from Bernice Bobs Her Hair:
“People over forty can seldom be permanently convinced of anything. At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look, at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.”

On a gold-digger, from The Chicago Kid: A Story of Cabaret Life:
“His hand was sliding the little strap down over the golden brown shoulder… Flora endured it, holding her breath, closing her eyes. A bit worse than she expected, but then… you can’t have everything. You can’t expect a perfect lover and a millionaire daddy to be rolled up in the same package. “You beautiful thing…” he was whispering huskily. He pressed closer, his hands almost burning her with their heat. His hands…hard not to shudder when they passed so intimately over her scantily clad body. But remember the millions…”… (mehr)

*3.5

This is a small collection of stories taken from an array of "Jazz Age" periodicals, focusing on the sensational experiences of young flapper women.

More than anything, the collection shines a light on the gender politics of the period. Knowing that many of these stories were written for young women to identify with, it's fascinating to read the character's display of confident sexual agency in a period decades before the modern women's movement would crop up. There's an undeniable tension between sexual and economic freedom being dependent on a woman's "value" on display in these stories—her looks, her youth, her vivacity—and it'd be almost tragic if it weren't played for laughs. The editor has also made a point of including black writers of the period, and it's intriguing to see that layer of race relatively unmentioned in the name of escapist literature.

Two stories in particular,"Bernice Bobs her Hair" by F. Scott Fitzgerald and "Night Club" by Katherine Brush are standouts, and even though it's been days since I finished them I just can't get them out of my mind. Beyond those two rich additions, Dawn Powell's "Not the Marrying Kind" and Viña Delmar's "Thou Shalt Not Killjoy" were like eating candied fruit. So fun!

As a party girl myself (don't tell!) I identified with many of the stories in one way or another. Even if you don't stay out way too late with random men as I do, this collection is worth picking up.

Thanks to Pushkin Press through NetGalley for the ARC :)… (mehr)

All Man! looks at the immensely popular men's magazines of the 1950s, which boasted a particularly aggressive form of masculinity. Papa Hemingway is the natural model for this type of masculinity - a hard drinking, womanizing, quick to fight, veteran (a regular "man's man") - so it's no surprise that he was such a frequent topic of admiration. David M. Earle studies these magazines as artifacts of their time, analyzing them for what they can tell us about the people and culture that created them. This is no easy task when considering the two topics - Hemingway and the 1950s - are so heavily idolized in our culture. I find a lot of these men's magazines hard to stomach, but I appreciated Earle's effort to bring them nuance.… (mehr)