Badgwendel's Blog
February 19, 2014
This Crazy Thing Called Love
I was trying to rearrange things on my bookcase to make room for my latest treasures after last week’s trip to the Friends of the Ferguson Library book shop (stoked I found an almost pristine copy of the Mitford sisters letters in hardcover but it’s a doorstop and a half!) when I managed to knock over the knee high stack of mass market paperbacks next to my dresser. I really need to buckle down and write those V.C. Andrews reviews I’ve been planning one of these days. But instead of settling down with Clan Dollaganger, I found myself putting aside Dominick Dunne’s The Two Mrs Grenvilles. But Friday afternoon found me combing the stacks of the Avon Free Public Library and adding This Crazy Thing Called Love: The Golden World and Fatal Marriage of Ann and Billy Woodward to my armload of books.
Now given my fascination with true crime and the life of the very very rich, you would think I would have reviewed This Crazy Thing Called Love: The Golden World and Fatal Marriage of Ann and Billy Woodward ages ago. This weekend’s reading wasn’t the first time I’ve encountered the book. Back in 1992 when This Crazy Thing Called Love was published I was right on the library reserve list behind all the old ladies who where old enough to remember the case and in one or two cases, ran in the right circles to have met the Woodwards back in the day. The old ladies in my home town? Full of surprises! What boggles the mind is there are people out there who devoured Truman Capote’s Answered Prayers and Dominick Dunne’s The Two Mrs Grenvilles and took those embellished stories as the gospel truth. That’s like reading Jackie Collins writing about her late night soap opera diva Sugar Anderson and assuming you now know all there is too know about Joan Collins and Shirley Maclaine. The true story is so much more interesting.
For those of you who have never heard of the Capote or Dunne books or even know who the Woodwards were, here are basics. In 1955, socialite Ann Woodward shot what she thought was an intruder at her family’s country home. Only, instead of an intruder who had been targeting their neighborhood, Ann Woodward had killed her banking heir husband Billy Woodward. The Woodwards had a stormy marriage with affairs on both sides and many people thought Ann Woodward had killed Billy Woodward in cold blood to keep him from divorcing her to marry someone from his own class. Billy Woodward’s family stood by Ann Woodward but she spent the rest of her life under a cloud of suspicion and died just before Esquire magazine published part of Truman Capote’s uncompleted novel Answered Prayers that included the story of a scandalous woman who shoots her very rich husband.
Thanks to Susan Braudy, the picture of the Ann and Billy Woodward is treated with fairness and a steady hand. Ann Woodward (born Angeline Luceil Crowell) wasn’t a saint, but she wasn’t the whore that Dominick Dunne and Truman Capote paint her to be in their stories. There wasn’t a secret hick first husband she was hiding from Billy Woodward. Given the changes in Billy Woodward’s will as their marriage crumbled, Ann Woodward would have been better off financially as the former Mrs Billy Woodward vs the Widow Woodward. Believe it or not…there really was a burglar prowling in their exclusive neighborhood the fateful night Billy Woodward died. And you can’t help but feel that if Ann Eden (the stage name Angleine Crowell used before her marriage) had never meet Billy Woodward or at least if their affair had been just a passing thing versus a marriage, both parties might still be alive and thriving in their own worlds.
If you’ve read Answered Prayers and The Two Mrs Grenvilles, make an effort to track down and read This Crazy Thing Called Love. Ann and Billy Woodward and their family deserve that much.
Filed under: book review, Books I Loved Back in the Day, From The Library Stacks, Library Raid, Susan Braudy, This Crazy Thing Called Love, true crime Tagged: Ann and Billy Woodward, book review, high society, Library Raid, notorious, scandal, Susan Braudy, This Crazy Thing Called Love, true crime


February 17, 2014
Rude Bitches Make Me Tired
Like my accent if you talk to me long enough, my reading tastes are over all the place. One minute I’m sounding like someone straight of an BBC costume drama and clutching my E.M. Delafield Provincial Lady omnibus to my sensible cardigan clad bosom and the next I’m sprawled on Mr Couch in one of Blacklight’s getting slightly seedy Skinny Puppy concert t-shirts reading Lovecraft and sometimes I’ve popped a cardigan over that concert t-shirt (cheaper than cranking up the heat), sipping hot tea and wishing Celia Rivenbark would materialize in my living room, jangling her car keys and so down with stopping at the Wallingford Sonic before hitting the Clinton Crossing Premium Outlets and cleaning the Lindt store out of every single Almond truffle in the place. Because Miss Celia? So my favorite Southern writer.
Now before you Sweet Potato Queens rise up as one saying “bless her ignorant lil Yankee heart” and trying to pour margaritas the size of an ocean liner down my throat to convert me, sit the bleep down your Majesties. I’ve read every single Sweet Potato Queens book, even The Sweet Potato Queens’ First Big-Ass Novel: Stuff We Didn’t Actually Do, but Could Have, and May Yet more than once. You’re a fun bunch, but dang, I find the whole Sweet Potato Queen thing a bit exhausting. All that bending and kneeling and kowtowing to your redheaded Amazon overlord…Celia Rivenbark seems more approachable. And I think I could encounter Celia Rivenbark and not have my liver trying to make a break for it. In my head? I like to think Celia would be all “oh you don’t drink? The more for me!” and be glad someone could drive her home safely after a girls lunch out. My liver would be half way to Canada if I hung out with Jill Conner Browne for more than five minutes.
So I don’t need to go on and on about how quick I snapped up Celia Rivenbark’s latest book Rude Bitches Make Me Tired: Slightly Profane and Entirely Logical Answers to Modern Etiquette Dilemmas? But can I show you the cut from the book itself? I swear the library used razor sharp diamond edges in cutting the hard plastic cover they heat sealed on the blasted book. And of course I devoured the Rude Bitches Made Me Tired as fast as possible, like a pig at a Old Country Buffet, once I staunched my wound. I am this close to making a custom “Rude Bitches Make Me Tired” sign in PowerPoint on break tomorrow and putting it right next to Blacklight’s Clan motto at my desk. Because there are things we all could do to be nice//better people and Celia Rivenbark points out that way in the funniest way possible. Instead of going all Miss Manners and clutching the pearls and using an epic story about the Trashys to explain why certain forms of PDA are just beyond gross, Our Lady Celia gives it to us straight. And if Blacklight and I had been parents, you so believe we would be the ones cranking the music and car dancing to get our teen to behave just like Celia.
And for you Sweet Potato Queens who are still convinced, blessed my savage lil Yankee heart, Gwen is a demon? Turn to the bottom of page 16 and read to page 17. I swear Celia Rivenbark is referring to the obituary your Supreme Sweet Potato Queen Jill Conner Browne placed when her Very Own Momma died. You know? The one her sister Judy Conner (author of Southern Fried Divorce which I have read thankyouverymuch) approved of? How would I have picked up that reference I hadn’t read the Sweet Potato Queens books? Still not forgiven, am I?
Hopefully Celia Rivenbark is hard at work on her next book. If not, maybe she’d like to come up to New England and check out our outlet malls? I promised to drive and not be a rude road hog bitch on the way.
Filed under: Authors I Want To Hang Out With, book review, Books You Need, Celia Rivenbark, Favorite Authors, Library Raid, Rude Bitches Make Me Tired, Southern Humor Tagged: Authors I Want To Hang Out With, awesome sauce, book review, Buy This Book, Celia Rivenbark, Library Raid, Rude Bitches Make Me Tired, Southern Humor


February 16, 2014
The Asylum
Considering on any given day I’m wandering around in a Lands’ End cardigan with a plain white t-shirt, black pants/black skirt/grey skirt (depending on the season), maybe a silk scarf and a strand of fake pearls from Macy’s (what Blacklight calls my “librarian look” and my coworkers call “Manager Blank Jr”-I don’t have the money to for trends and splashy patterns and the like), it might come as a surprise I devour every single Simon Doonan book I can get my little undead raccoon hands on. And I mean everything from his memoir Nasty: My Family And Other Glamorous Varmints to Wacky Chicks: Life Lessons from Fearlessly Inappropriate and Fabulously Eccentric Women to even why does my local library even have this Confessions of a Window Dresser: Tales from the Life of Fashion. Finding The Asylum: A collage of couture reminiscences…and hysteria at the library and shoving it into my bag, looking around like someone was going to snatch it away from me? Perfect understandable right?
You would think between his books and Slate column, Simon Doonan might not have anything more to say or reveal about the fashion industry. But Simon Doonan has more stories than oddly flowered shirts (and the man has oceans of oddly flowered shirts) and The Asylum was read in one great big swoop once I got home from the library. If Blacklight hadn’t figured out he has opposable thumbs and not made himself an English muffin for breakfast and come into the bedroom to rouse me to make an egg sandwich? I would have been standing at the damn stove with The Asylum in one hand and assembling an egg sandwich with the other and wishing I had a free hand to flip him the bird for disturbing me. Reading a Simon Doonan book is almost as good as spa day (and a damn straight cheaper).
The Asylum isn’t the biggest book or the most scholarly (waves to Tim Gunn and his epic Tim Gunn’s Fashion Bible) and I certainly don’t find Kate Moss a goddess (ughh, Kate Moss, just ughhhh) but damn if Simon Doonan can’t write in a gossipy way that makes me forget the sight of Kate Moss makes my teeth start grinding madly. Note: if you were looking at the Rimmel display in Target and heard what sounded like Tic-Tacs getting chomped into dust? Sorry…but blame Target for having the NYX and E.L.F displays so close to the Rimmel display. Note 2: I don’t like Rimmel even if Kate Moss isn’t their spokesface, Team NYX/Team E.L.F. forever!
Now to finish this review, “The Asylum is awesome and if you like fashion buy it already, really don’t waste your money on Nina Garcia books because ughhhhhhhhhh”, and watch Beautiful People (the TV series based on Nasty)on YouTube before Blacklight lurches into the living room, a Vicodin zombie demanding his egg sandwich breakfast…
Filed under: book review, Books I Want, fashion, Favorite Authors, Library Raid, Simon Doonan, The Asylum Tagged: awesome sauce, book review, Buy It Now, fashion, Favorite Authors, I Want This Book, Library Raid, Simon Doonan, The Asylum


WSIR: The Queen
Once when I was a wee little Gwen counting and recounting all the change in my piggy bank to see if I had enough money to get another Nancy Drew mystery, I found the weirdest coin. Now thanks to some business trips my father had brought back things like pesos and once a replica Spanish piece of eight. But this coin looked like a quarter but it didn’t have the funny ridges on the edge. I found my father and asked what it was. He wasn’t thrilled to be pulled away from his precious aviation newspaper but explained to me it was a Canadian quarter and the person on it was the Queen. I asked if she was evil and chopped off heads. Yes, I was an odd little girl…
Now that I’m an adult I know Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith isn’t going to chop off my head. However, she may cluck her tongue over my extravagnce in throwing out my socks worn out at the toes versus darning them but I’d like to think she would totally understand my need to have my shoes just so and having all my shirts and sweaters organized by color. (Blacklight: “You my dear are so OCD…” Me: “Lean over… ” )
As many books as I’ve read about Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith and her extended family (trust me I could make a book fort from all the books on royals/royalty I’ve read) my favorite ones are a handful of fiction titles that make the Queen seem like the nice older lady who would nod with approval as I snap up a wooden darning egg from the craft/sewing section at the Wallingford Goodwill. Or would understand why I carry around several carefully ironed white lace trimmed handkerchiefs in my purse year round.
The Uncommon Reader: A Novella by Alan Bennett
A very quick and charming read. One day the Queen, on a hunt for her corgis, discovers a mobile library van at the palace and becomes a reader. Will Her Majesty be able to keep her new found love in the face of her Council and public?
Mrs Queen Takes the Train by William Kuhn
Imagine being on the train and realizing the sweet older lady who looks so familiar a few seats away might be the Queen. But Her Majesty in a hoodie? The mind boggles. Now try to the be courtiers tracking down the Queen who has gone AWOL. Will they find her before anyone outside the Palace realizes she is missing?
The Queen and I by Sue Townsend
In an alternative reality Britain, a newly elected party comes to power and strips the Royal Family of their privileges and forces the former Royals to life like the rest of us right down to council housing and vouchers. Some Royals can’t handle the changes, other Royals rise to the challenge. And the Queen shows no matter what the circumstances she can handle just about anything with grace, determination and the will to soldier on.
Queen Camilla by Sue Townsend
Set in the same universe as The Queen and I, the former Royal Family are still in the Exclusion Zone. The Duke of Edinburgh is sinking fast and Her Majesty is tired. If Her Majesty abdicates, Prince Charles will become King…but will his new wife Camilla be accepted as the Queen. Add a long buried secret coming to life and the antics of the Royal Grandsons and what will be of the former Royals now?
Have a book about the Queen I’ve forgotten or should read? Let me know in the comments!
Filed under: books, recommendations, Royals, Royalty, The Queen, What Should I Read? Tagged: Alan Bennett, book recommendations, books, Mrs Queen Takes The Train, Queen Camilla, Queen Elizabeth II, Sue Townsend, The Queen, The Queen and I, The UnCommon Reader, What Should I Read?, William Kuhn


What Should I Read?
Sometimes when I’m checking out at the circulation desk, the librarian notices a theme in what I’m reading. It’s funny how you can pick up one book and then of all a sudden just must read all the books in that same subject! Case in point. On Wednesday’s trip to the Friends of the Ferguson Library book store I noticed an interesting book on perfume but didn’t get it because a signed Helen Gurley Brown title took precedence. Of course, hours later at home I regretted not buying the darn book but found it was available in my library network and now I have about six different books about perfume and fragrance on hold/request.
Then the thought occurred to me. Why not make a regular feature of recommendations on various themes? So if you see a post tagged What Should I Read?, well that’s one of my recommendation lists! I know not all the themes or the books on them will appeal to everyone but if you find a treasure on a list or have a recommendation for a published list? Please let me know!
Happy Reading!
Gwen
Filed under: books, recommendations, What Should I Read? Tagged: book recommendations, books, new feature, What Should I Read?


February 14, 2014
Literary Boyfriends
Valentine’s Day in Moderate Income Apartments is an amazing day let me tell you. Blacklight is curled up on Mr Couch watching Minecraft videos on YouTube and I just woke up from a nap. So why not stagger into the living room, grab Mr Laptop and write about the book guys who make me swoon. The only rule? I have to have read you/about you so many times even Blacklight has figured out you’re a literary rival.
-H.P. Lovecraft
Come on, this should not come as surprise. He’s not handsome, he can be difficult to read and good molly Miss Molly he was opinionated. But I can pick up a collection of his letters during his New York exile and feel like I’m right with him getting that little stove for his room or trudging around through every discount tailor shop looking for just the right suits to replace his stolen clothes. Blacklight: “Gwen…you have strange tastes in men” Me: “Yeah…and???”
-Doc (Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday)
The part angel/part saint owner/operator of Western Biological who is one of the vital parts of Steinbeck’s Cannery Row. Without Doc, Cannery Row loses it’s heart. Heck, the main action of both Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday is Mack and the boys trying to do something nice for Doc. I’d slip over to Western Biological with some cold cans of beer any day no matter what Doc is collecting or get ready to send to a school.
-Charles “Pa” Ingalls (Little House series)
The Little House series has to easily be one of the most important book series in my life. It’s one of the things my parents read to me as a wee little BookGwen and I read it at least twice a year nearly forty years later. You television Little House come latelies can swoon all you want over permed hair Pa Ingalls. Actually… you can keep him and his lack of underpants. Seriously, I find Michael Landon as Pa beyond gross. The real Charles Ingalls has a kind of crazy intense look that reminds of Christian Bale going hardcore for a movie role (Blacklight: “I bet you think he’s hot” Me: ). The book version of Charles Ingalls isn’t a saint, and you know it could not have been an easy life being married to someone who dragged you and your children all over the damn country dodging Indians, financial ruin and the relentless weather. But those wonderful Garth Williams illustrations? Now that is one handsome man who could swing an ax as easily as he could play the fiddle. Maybe pulling up stakes…again…isn’t such a bad thing?
-Captain Brown (Cranford)
Cranford doesn’t quite know what to make of Captain Brown when he and his daughters come to live in the quiet town. For one thing, he’s a…man and well, he admits to being poor and loves The Pickwick Papers . But he’s a good man who will do anything for his girls with his limited resources and his death? The man dies saving children from being killed by a train. Sorry Jim Carter, you did a lovely job as Captain Brown in the 2007 Cranford tv series but in my head? Captain Brown is Alan Rickman.
-Bernard Black (Black Books)
Okay so Bernard Black isn’t an author (his amazing response to a publisher’s rejection letter notwithstanding) and he’s not in a book but he’s a fictional character who runs his own book shop. He’s surly and loathes his customers and smokes and drinks. I should loathe him right back. But there is something about this cranky pants Irishman that makes me swoon and wish Black Books was a real shop to visit on my fantasy “Raid All The Used Book Shops In The UK” trip.
Now to spend the rest of Valentine’s Day with the only true rival for my books and Mr Kindle…Blacklight.
Filed under: awesome sauce, books, Literary Boyfriends Tagged: Bernard Black, Black Books, books, Cannery Row, Captain Brown, Cranford, Doc, Happy Valentines Day, HP Lovecraft, literary boyfriends, Little House series, Pa Ingalls, Sweet Thursday


February 13, 2014
What I’ve Been Listening to…
I might not have the coolest job in the world. Some days I might collect paper cuts like Pokemon. But I can listen to my iPod all day long. And when I’m not listening to podcasts or trying not to sing along with Duran Duran, David Bowie or Skinny Puppy, I listen to audiobooks. Lovely, glorious audiobooks. Well, not every audiobook is for me (see the blog post about my issue with some audiobook narrators) but I’m willing to give most audiobooks a try to help whittle away the work day.
Something went very right in Library Land this past week because I received e-mails audiobooks I put on hold via OverDrive Media were finally mine. Well, mine for seven days. And lunge for my iPod and download away I went.
Now this might seem logical to the average person but unless you of very stern stuff it’s not the best idea to start listening to Max Brooks’ World War Z on your way to work around 5 am. Especially when you’re driving down lonely back country roads and you’re the only person on the road. You will freak the flip out when a cat slinks across the road. But once you’ve gotten safely to work, put the electric kettle on for your first cups of tea and it’s just you and a security guard down the hall? World War Z is amazing. I hadn’t been at work more than twenty minutes when I went online, found the cast list, printed it out and stuck it next to my monitor as I tackled Work Drawer Everest. I have never done that with an audiobook before. Looked up a narrator? Yes I’ve done that before. I like knowing what other books a reader has done if I recognize their voice.
But World War Z? Oh my great Tulu the talent! I might have swooned (okay I did) when Jürgen Prochnow started his chapter. (Blacklight: “That’s it! You’re banned from watching Dune ever again!” Me: In the Mouth of Madness>). Sadly I didn’t realize until too late I was listening to the abridged audiobook of World War Z. I loathe abridged audiobooks something awful. But worry not! I am so getting the 10 disc unabridged version from the library this weekend if the snow ever freaking stops. Stupid New England winter weather…
Still rather bummed I didn’t get to listen to some of my favorite World War Z stories (if you can listen to feral child Sharon’s story and not cry? You are a monster! Or my brother Andy…), I moped around on Mr Couch once I got home. Then I checked my email. What did I find? Besides Groupon offering deals on wine and vineyard tours. Groupon…I don’t drink!!!!!! I had 48 hours to snap up the second hold I had placed weeks ago. If there is a land speed record for Overdrive Media sign in and downloads on an iPod? I might have set a new record. The next morning when I logged into my computer at Company X, I had my ear-buds jammed in and was listening to The Astronaut Wives Club. Now Blacklight, who is a NASA nerd and thinks he knows everything about astronauts and outer space claims the best book about space is Mike Mullane’s Riding Rockets. He’s so wrong. Because Riding Rockets needs to stand in line behind Mary Roach’s Packing for Mars. And both those books need to bow down before Lily Koppel’s The Astronaut Wives Club: A True Story because without the support and superhuman efforts of their wives, those space cowboys would haven’t been able to set off a toy rocket let alone go into space. sheer horror because I have just said the most horrid thing ever.>
Look I’m not a total savage. I’ve read books about space and astronauts. I had Starman: The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin reserved and read before Blacklight even knew the book existed. But for my money, The Astronaut Wives Club: A True Story is the book I want to have in my permanent audiobook collection. Yes, I giggled when Orlagh Cassidy did her best JFK voice (it sounded more Foghorn Leghorn than JFK to me) but damn if I didn’t tear up when Apollo 1 burned up and when poor Joan Aldrin should have just run like hell from her marriage (Blacklight: “Buzz Aldrin is a god! How dare you!”). You know a book is amazing when you go from wondering if the office will close early because of the snow to losing yourself completely in the stories of the ladies who did everything to get their men into space.
Now to figure out what to listen to at work tomorrow. Will this be the time I finally get more than two chapters into Queen Lucia without giving up? Do I re-listen to something from the permanent audiobook collection? Maybe Sybil Exposed? Or do I grab my iPod and see what treasures are available from OverDrive Media?
Filed under: audiobooks, Lily Koppel, Max Brooks, OverDrive Media, The Astronaut Wives Club, What I'm Listening To, What I've Been Listening To, World War Z Tagged: audiobooks, Audiobooks Rule, Lily Koppel, Max Brooks, The Astronaut Wives Club, What I've Been Listening To, World War Z


February 9, 2014
Careless People
Now it might not a be a huge secret I’m not the most literary person. Sure I read oodles of books, have planned vacation days around trips to bookstores and was just on the phone with the Most Evil Sibling Ever (Andy) last night planning a trip to the Friends of the Ferguson Library Book Store for Wednesday (hooray for flex holidays!) but just because you read books doesn’t make you literary. You’ll never find me singing the praises of the literary canon far and wide. Actually you’re more likely to find me proclaiming how Melville should have just made out with Nathaniel Hawthorne more than how much I enjoyed Moby Dick and Billy Budd (loathe both of them so very much).
So imagine my surprise when I’m cruising by the New Biography section at the Berlin-Peck Memorial Library and snap up a book on F. Scott Fitzgerald. And not just any book about F. Scott Fitzgerald, but one about The Great Gatsby, a novel that is right up there in Gwen Loathes It list right next to Moby Dick, the complete works of Charles Dickens and Ernest Hemingway. If you love love love F. Scott Fitzgerald and think I’m a savage, it’s totally okay to stop reading now. Before you shriek too much, remember I have actually read The Great Gatsby (a horrid school experience against my will) and have of my own free will read several books about the Fitzgeralds. They’re my Kardashians, a train wreck of people who I know more about than I ever intended too. I mean, you can’t read about the Murphys or Dorothy Parker without encountering Scott and Zelda. And the best of these books? Explore the society the Fitzgeralds interacted with right down to the bootleggers and publishers and the rest.
Don’t check me for pod marks. The book in question is Sarah Churchwell’s Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the Invention of The Great Gatsby, an interesting exploration of both one of my most loathed books and a unsolved murder from the 1920s that has intrigued me since I was a wee thing. True crime has always been in my wheelhouse and when you combine true crime with a greater look at society I’m in. With all my reading it fully occurred to me a crime as well known (it was consider one of the crimes of it’s decade) like the Hall-Mills Murder would have influenced the fiction of it’s time. (For people who never heard of the Hall-Mills Murder, in 1922 the Reverend Hall and his married mistress Mrs Mills were found dead in a lane under a tree with love letters scattered around them.) Let alone a book many people (not me) consider one of the best books ever written. But that is the basic premise of Careless People, the Hall-Mills Murders influenced and impacted F. Scott Fitzgerald as he plotted and planned his greatest novel. And Sarah Churchwell’s carefully researched details (right down to things from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s scrapbook that dispute certain details you come to expect when you read enough about Scott and Zelda) give you an excellent picture of what life was like as the Fitzgeralds partied and Scott tried to write and the horrifically inept handling of the Hall-Mills murder case.
Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the Invention of The Great Gatsby, doesn’t solve the Hall-Mills Murder (sadly we are more likely to solve the Jack the Ripper murders than who killed Reverend Hall and Mrs Mills due to the bungling police work) but it does do something even my most dedicated professors could never do, made me understand and think about The Great Gatsby beyond something I was being forced to read to pass a class to get that degree. Any decent writer can make Scott and Zelda come alive on the page just due to the force of their personalities but it takes a talented and thoughtful author to make me care about Fitzgerald’s works. Will Careless People make me snatch up Mr Kindle and buy The Great Gatsby right this second? Will I be tracking down a Norton Critical Edition to get the full Gatsby experience like I did after reading Dreiser’s Sister Carrie for the first time? Never in a million years. But is Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the Invention of The Great Gatsby a book I would read again? Certainly.
Filed under: biography, book review, Careless People, F Scott Fitzgerald, Library Raid, literary biographies, Sarah Churchwell, The 1920s, The Great Gatsby, true crime, Zelda Fitzgerald Tagged: book review, Careless People, F Scott Fitzgerald, Hall-Mills murder, Library Raid, Sarah Churchwell, The 1920s, The Great Gatsby, Zelda Fitzgerald


A Life of Barbara Stanwyck Steel-True
Ever since I was old enough to check out books from the adult part of the library, I’ve read towering stacks of movie star biographies. Some are as told you autobiographies that for all they reveal about the star might as well be turned into those book crafts I see on Buzzfeed every so often. You might as well read their Wikipedia page. Other movie star biographies are either so poorly written either to paint their subject as a saint or sinner of all sinners that well, you read them to the end but feel like you’ve just eaten a box of Twinkies for dinner and hate yourself for reading the darn book. (I’m looking at you Forever Young : The Life, Loves, and Enduring Faith of a Hollywood Legend ; The Authorized Biography of Loretta Young.)
And is Victoria Wilson’s A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940. Stunning, brilliant, epic and don’t drop this bad boy on your foot come to mind. It’s almost 1000 pages including notes and indexes. We are talking Tom Clancy/Stephen King doorstop size. And it’s just the first volume of a full scale biography. And let’s not forget Miss Barbara Stanwyck worked all the time. Work was like books, essential as breathing. Trust me, if you’re looking for a quick read that has S-E-X and scandal on every single page? Please put down A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940 (gently because once again trust me, you don’t want to drop this and break a toe) and scamper off to find a Hollywood Babylon book.
It’s not easy to write a biography on a movie star like Barbara Stanwyck. The easy path for the Stanwyck biographer is to use the studo stories about the tough orphan from the streets and maybe her alleged loved of ladies angle. Luckily, Victoria Wilson does not go the easy route even though she could given her subject. Barbara Stanwyck is not your Marilyn Monroe or Joan Crawford with oceans of press stories and scandals to wade through. She was also not the most open or accessible person. I always got the feeling that if someone like Shelley Winters would open up with a drop of a hat in line at Dunkin Donuts while you waited for your Vanilla Bean Coolattas at the pickup counter and tell you everything you ever wanted to know right down to did they dress left or dress right. But Barbara Stanwyck would be a total clam even if you knew her for years and years. Maybe she might crack open a little bit if you caught her at the right time but you’d be better off buying a Powerball ticket during a $400+ million jackpot week.
And that feeling doesn’t seem to be far off because the Barbara Stanwyck Victoria Wilson uncovers is a woman who keeps to herself. The little girl born Ruby Stevens came from a good family on a downward slide and by the time she was a school aged had no proper home. The very young Ruby was placed with various families and her older siblings, a corner of a room here and there with magical times her favorite sister would swoop in and show her the theatrical world. Given all this turmoil and struggles to support herself once she was a teenager, is this any wonder the young Ruby developed a hard shell. And seriously, how could I not love an person who educated themselves and read so much bookstores would send them things automatically? A person who could read a book every night no matter how long she spent on set or toiling at her ranch.
One of the things you take away from A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940 is the iron control that propelled Barbara Stanwyck. Curse her for the way she could drop a friend so completely the hurt can still be felt on the page decades later. Curse her for not leaving Frank Fay sooner. Curse her for not being the mother her son Dion needed. But praise her for the willpower and control she exhibited. A woman who could force herself to work after being crushed by a horse? A woman who filmed some of her best early parts strapped and taped up, her face never betraying the extent of how battered her body was? An actress who cared more about the craft than what gown was being whipped up for her.
Barbara Stanwyck wasn’t perfect or a superwoman but she had layers and levels beyond the usual movie star of her times. That is a lady I want to read more about. And Victoria Wilson can not write the next volumes quick enough to satisfy me.
Filed under: A Life of Barbara Stanwyck Steel-True, Barbara Stanwyck, biography, book review, Buy or Check It Out, Buy This Book, Hollywood, Movie Star, Victoria Wilson Tagged: A Life of Barbara Stanwyck Steel-True, Barbara Stanwyck, biography, book review, Buy This Book, Hollywood, Library Raid, Movie Star, Victoria Wilson


On Tour
The Noel Streatfeild kick? Still going strong…once this review is done? Off to e-Bay to see if any of her Susan Scarlet romances are available for a decent price! First, let’s take a look at volume two of Noel Streatfeild’s semi-autobiographical series, On Tour: An Autobiographical Novel of the 20′s.
Published in the UK as Away From the Vicarage, On Tour: An Autobiographical Novel of the 20′s shows us Victoria Strangeway as an adult. World War I has ended. It’s been a very rough time but the vicarage has survived. Victoria, Isobel and Louise have returned from their war work, younger brother Dick has been wounded but will be headed to university soon. The vicar is still a walking saint and Mrs Strangeway? She still can’t manage her household for beans even though the vicar has inherited property from his late parents. And there’s a new Strangeway, littlest sister (totally a surprise baby) Theodora. Who knew the vicar and Mrs Strangeway were still…well…you know…Theodora is charming, clever and wonderful and thanks to the age gap between her and the others, is almost an only child. Louise has dropped a bombshell, she’s getting married and moving abroad with her new husband. Is there a place for Victoria in all this change?
Turns out the answer is NO. So Victoria summons her courage and goes to train as an actress. Because of the general family reaction (actress=scarlet woman) Victoria decides to take the name Victoria Sonning. Her theatrical training is hard and she has little money but Victoria is determined to live life as much as possible and shake off the vicarage shackles. A reader used to Streatfeild’s children’s novels might get a little shock when you realize that Victoria is pretty much prostituting herself to get money and clothes from her suitors. She never goes the full nine yards but you get the feeling she’s come awful close a few times. And is it that much different from Louise marrying so young? But sisters are doing what they have (and who they have) to do to escape the confines of the vicarage. Their parents aren’t horrible people but vicarage life is confining and narrow for the eldest Strangeway children.
Victoria manages to survive her stage school and then plunges into the world of a professional actress. She gets work and travels all over but you get the feeling that her stage work doesn’t truly fulfill her. And she certainly doesn’t care for the narrow and grimy life in theatrical digs and the constant moving around. Africa is enchanting but being thought of a Jezebel and a man-eater thanks to a some less than brilliant behavior and two male members of the theater company dying casts a cloud and stain on her acting career. People will always remember the scandal over how good her performances are.
On Tour is such a sadder book than A Vicarage Family. The younger Victoria had a fire and a zest that not even the wartime death of her beloved cousin John could quench. The older Victoria? The rough patches in life really send her skidding. The spark that got her to pursue a theatrical career vs life as an unpaid curate/domestic slave to her parents dims the farther she gets from school. Her longing for a home and love leaps off the page and when she realizes her so called love isn’t truly “in love” it’s a cut that almost destroys her more than the scandals that plague her acting career.
The other issue that makes On Tour a much different experience than A Vicarage Family is how closed off Victoria is. In A Vicarage Family you feel all the injustices and joys of Victoria’s life. She crackles and blazes and jumps off the page. You understand exactly why Annie is drawn to her and defends her. Maybe it’s because of the upheavals of the war or the changes in society but On Tour Victoria holds back and only gives us glimpses into her life. Was Noel Streatfeild ashamed of her life and feelings then? What was so awful that she makes Victoria a pale shadow of the girl that intrigued us so? Is it because S-E-X rears it’s head?
You can almost feel the squirming when Streatfeild writes about the appearance of Theodora. Yes, Noel/Victoria was a product of a very Victorian upbringing (Her sister Louise had no clue why she was getting sick every morning only weeks after being married. Just how much if any talk did Mrs Strangeway have with her daughters?) You might be tempted to think what keeps Victoria from actually jumping into bed with her suitors during her training isn’t the consequences (Theodora/the village girls illegitimate babies) but the actual act of sex itself. She is certainly repelled by Louise’s husband Him. Maybe it’s this disgust of sex that keeps her with her “we shall have a white farmhouse” suitor for so long because it seems crystal clear to me that this suitor might be happier with Dick Strangeway than Miss Victoria Sonning. Then again I could just be having one of my Gwen’s Crazy Literary Theories. Because I find Victoria Strangeway an interesting character I want to read more about no matter who or what she loves.
Even with it’s issues, On Tour is a must read. Even if many things are white-washed it still gives an interesting look at leaving a very moral and upright world for one with looser boundaries. And it makes you want to track down more of Streatfeild’s adult works. And exploring an author’s full writings is never a bad thing.
Filed under: A Vicarage Family, book review, Books I Want, Books That Need To Be Republished, Library Raid, Noel Streatfeild, On Tour, The 1920s Tagged: A Vicarage Family, book review, Books That Need To Be Republished, Library Raid, Noel Streatfeild, On Tour, The 1920s

