Flappers

Written by Judith Mackrell

Narrated by Julia Franklin

Glamorised, mythologised and demonised - the women of the 1920s prefigured the 1960s in their determination to reinvent the way they lived. Flappers is in part a biography of that restless generation: it focuses on six women who between them exemplified the range and daring of that generation's spirit. Diana Cooper, Nancy Cunard, Tallulah Bankhead, Zelda Fitzgerald, Josephine Baker and Tamara de Lempicka were far from typical flappers. Talented, reckless and wilful, with personalities that transcended their class and background, they re-wrote their destinies in remarkable, entertaining and tragic ways.

‘Flappers is all good, dirty fun… Mackrell is an engaging storyteller with a deceptively light touch' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

• Language: English
• Publisher: W. F. Howes Ltd
• Release date: Nov 7, 2013
• ISBN: 9781471246432

Judith Mackrell

Judith Mackrell is a celebrated dance critic, writing first for the Independent and now for the Guardian. Her biography of the Russian ballerina Lydia Lopokova, Bloomsbury Ballerina, was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award. She has also appeared on television and radio, as well as writing on dance, co-authoring The Oxford Dictionary of Dance. She lives in London with her family.

Reviews for Flappers

[pennsylady · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

women "glamorized, mythologized, and demonized" (from Flapperssynopsis)Flappers contains extensive notes, bibliography and index.It's a joy for the reader that appreciates precision in research.This literary work includes the life tales of 6 women who defined the Jazz Age—Josephine Baker, Tallulah Bankhead, Diana Cooper, Nancy Cunard, Zelda Fitzgerald, and Tamara de Lempicka...We search primarily their formative years and encounters in the 1920's.But, we do move on and experience the oft occuring repercussions of their living in unprecedented style.Their experiences are definitely exceptional.....they are brash, defiant, audacious re-inventors of self....they extended beyond envisioning and claimed as a right "a life beyond marriage and motherhood"....."a violent disruption of almost all the standards, conventions and values current in the previous epoch" (Aldous Huxley)"Willing to run the risks of their independence as well as enjoy its pleasures, there were good reasons for them to be perceived as women of a dangerousgeneration." (introduction Flappers Judith Mackrell)4.5 ★This is by far the most shocking and comprehensive work that I've read, emerging from beneath the "flapper" umbrella.

[murderbydeath · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Is it possible to be both ambitious and balanced? The answer is yes, of course it is; there are manifold examples of men and women who have achieved great things while maintaining balanced, rational lives. Reading books like Flappers though, one can't be blamed for wondering. No doubt that the more outrageous lives make more exciting reading, but as seems always the case after reading these omnibus biographies, I'm left with the feeling that these women - who inarguably achieved great things in the face of extraordinary obstacles - are not the ones we should be holding up as shining examples of success. At least Flappers doesn't outright label them as heroines as one similar recently published book hailed its subjects. But boy, does the outrageous make for delicious reading (if you can overlook the numerous and egregious copy-editing errors). These women were rebellious, emotionally starved, unstable sometimes to the point of madness, and ambitious. Their determination and stubbornness were admirable, if their lack of moral compass was not. I'm not referring here, by the way, to their collective sexual escapades, of which I can only sit back and applaud with awe. It's more the way they all believed, no matter how humble or grand their beginnings, that the rules didn't apply to them. About the only woman I came out of this admiring was Josephine Baker. While her compass most certainly did not point north, the author seems to chalk up some of this to naivety and ignorance (although I'm pretty sure she knew bigamy was a no-go and just didn't care). Diana Cooper might have also made it to a happy old age, but Josephine showed the most ability to adapt, to learn, to grow, and to do it all without seeming to compromise her dignity. Take all this with a grain of salt, of course; condensed biographies like these are necessarily incomplete and leave out a lot of details that might change the reader's perspective, but the writing is engaging and Mackrell manages to connect all five women's lives into a relatively cohesive narrative. The women themselves do the rest.

[kerns222 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The ME generation, part one. At least for women. Men have been me me me for a long time.
These women styled themselves, they did the both-ends-burning trick, and some lived to change. Social action was not high on their list in the 20's. The Great War ended thinking of anything but get mine. Then the 30's burnt out their candles (both ends). The book follows them until they fully snuffed out, some handling it better than others.

[jaylia3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Flappers is a book that time-trips into the brave new world tempest of the 1920’s through the lives of six independent-minded and fascinating women. Their backgrounds could hardly be more different, but each of them upended conventional expectations by working hard to discard the hand they had been dealt, and all them spent time in Paris, the magnetic city that drew seekers from across the globe looking for avant-garde adventure during the lively decade sandwiched between the Great War and the Great Depression.Lady Diana (Manners) Cooper posed nude for artists, married against her parents wishes, and worked as an actress to support her husband’s political career. Nancy Cunard, another upper class Brit, wrote poetry, ran her own printing press to publish Modernist, Surrealist, and Dada literature, developed a striking personal fashion based on African artifacts, and was muse and sometimes lover to many authors of the era. Tallulah Bankhead and Zelda Fitzgerald were southern girls and Alabama neighbors on similar quests for excitement, wider horizons, and artistic recognition. Josephine Baker, a poor black girl born in the slums of St. Louis, danced her way into the heart of Paris. Tamara de Lempicka, a Russian aristocrat displaced and penniless after the Russian Revolution, reinvented herself in Paris as an artist with a distinct and early Art Deco style--it’s her self portrait that’s on the cover of the book.Each woman has two in-depth, sympathetic but not hagiographic, and thoroughly interesting chapters devoted to her doings before and then during the 1920’s, so their lives during the 20’s are shown in context and it’s not hard to keep track of who is who. An Epilogue sketches the remainder of their stories, from the 1930’s until their deaths. Captivating as both a group biography and a history of its time, Flappers has added several books to my TBR list because I want to read more about several of the women--all six are intriguing but Tamara, Josephine, and Nancy really charmed and captured me.

[csmcmahon_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I picked this book up because I am fascinated by the 1920s and it didn't disappoint. Flappers offers a good snippet of six extraordinary women. Each woman is the subject of two chapters in the book; one about their beginnings and rise to prominence and one about their prominence and struggles later in life. I confess that I knew nothing about Lady Diana Cooper and felt less interested in the chapters related to her. It would appear that the author was particularly interested in her as her chapters seemed more complete. Personally the one thing that bugged me about the book was its comments about celebrity. These woman were the celebrities of their day. They struggled with combining their public and private lives. Yet I shudder tho think that in 80 or 90 years people will be reading about the likes of theKardashians, Paris Hilton, Miley, etc. I would prefer to live in a world where they are insignificant.