By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept by Elizabeth Smart

In August 1937 writer Elizabeth Smart walked into a London bookshop, opened a collection of poems by George Barker and fell in love.  By the time they met and began an affair three years later – resulting in the birth of four children, although he never left his wife – she was already so utterly [...]

---

The Assumption of the Rogues & Rascals by Elizabeth Smart

In 1940, Elizabeth Smart began an affair with the poet, George Barker, which she eternalized in its many agonies and seemingly far fewer ecstasies in By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept.  Though Barker stayed with his wife, they had four children who Smart supported through journalism and advertising work in London before [...]

---

Here to get My Baby out of Jail by Louise Shivers

Every once in a while, a book comes along in which the pacing is so precise, the pitch so perfect, the language so measured, and the cast so beguiling that I am mesmerized and awed. Louise Shivers’ first novel, Here to get My Baby out of Jail appeared over twenty years ago and, when I [...]

---

Save Me The Waltz by Zelda Fitzgerald

There isn’t a whole heap left to say about Zelda Fitzgerald.  Common consensus states she was a drunk, a Southern Belle, a madwoman, one half of the 20’s most garrulous couple, the definitive Flapper, and a writer, painter, and dancer frustrated at every turn by some wider desire for conformity and the professional jealousy of [...]

---

The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by A. N. Roquelaure

Porn is posh.  It is not explicit or pornographic: instead it is “libertine philosophy” (review of The Sexual Life of Catherine M in the Times Literary Supplement, no less).  It does not need to be concealed from wives and servants (see Mervyn Griffith-Jones’ Opening Address for the Prosecution in Lady Chatterley’s Trial).  It “exemplifies the [...]

---

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »