Letters from the Lost Generation: Gerald and Sara Murphy and Friends by Linda Patterson Miller (Editor) (31-Dec-1993) Paperback

by Linda Patterson Miller

This is the story of one of the most famous literary "sets" of the 20th century. Gerald and Sara Murphy were at the centre of a group that included Ernest Hemingway and his wives, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, Archibald MacLeish, Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woollcott, Robert Benchley, Phillip Barry and many others. They personified the jazz age and the lost generation. The Murphys have been viewed primarily as cult-pop figures, particularly as they were depicted in Calvin Tomkin's "Living Well is the Best Revenge". In this book, Miller shows, through a sequential interweaving of letters from several correspondents, that they were actually the nucleus without which the group as we know it would not have stayed together. Miller allows the individual correspondents to tell their own stories, providing new insights into their lives and this era. Miller provides nearly every extant letter between the Murphys and their friends during the 20s and 30s, when they were living in France. Most of these letters have not been published previously and have never been presented collectively.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography

Unknown Binding

First published April 1, 1991

Reviews

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have never read a book quite like this, an epistolary biography chronicling the lives of a group of people, in this case a group of Americans who met as ex-pats living in France connected through an avid interest in art and literature but also in the good life. And life was good on the French Riviera in the 1920s, especially if you were the guest of the charming, cultivated, and wealthy Murphys at their Villa American. Sara and Gerald Murphy are at the center of this book: The letters it contains are to and from them, with the other parties involved such literary luminaries as Ernest Hemingway and his second wife Pauline, F. Scott Fitzgerald and before she became ill and was institutionalized his wife Zelda, Archibald Macleish, Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woollcott, and John and Katy Dos Passos, among others.

The editor of the book has divided the letters into three sections, forming a chronology, with editor's notes before each section that explain the major events of each time period, events that are sometimes referred to in the letters but often are not. Indeed, the letters are interesting as much for what they reveal as well what they conceal about these people.

The book started out slowly for me, but I eventually got quite caught up in the personalities, alliances, misalliances, misunderstandings, love, loyalty, and shared grief over life's inevitable losses, though some of them are truly terrible and tragic.

I am always sad after reading a biography. Biographies follow the trajectory of people's lives, and we know where the end lies. But living through these people's lives through their letters had an even greater immediacy and intensity than the usual digested biography. For me, among the letter-writers, the person who sparkled the most was Katy Dos Passos. Her descriptions of domestic life are so colorful, so funny, so alive. I had to put the book down for a while when I had come to her last letter. It was just too sad for a time to go on. It is a moving book.

[Keely · Rating 4 out of 5]

The things that struck me most: Fitzgerald's heartbreaking letters about his struggles in Hollywood, his health, and financial struggles. The Murphys' condescension toward him, as well as their malignant, passive-aggressive hints that Hemingway should dump Hadley for Pauline (without having the guts to come out and say it directly); Hemingway later grew to regard divorcing Hadley as the greatest mistake of his life. Katy Dos Passos' affected attempts to be gay and literary: "Aren't the Greeks a wonderful little people?" All the letters are full of atmosphere and are more evocative of the times than most of the biographies I've read on the Murphys and their circle. The most striking sentence of the entire book was from a letter Zelda wrote to the Murphys from Montgomery, Alabama, right after Scott's death: "Those tragically ecstatic years when the pockets of the world were filled with pleasant surprizes and people still thought of life in terms of their right to a good time are now about to wane."

The book is helpfully annotated and augmented with balanced passages that explain the circumstances of the subjects' lives and times.

I can't recall if any of the letters that Patrick Murphy (Gerald & Sara's son) wrote in the months before his tragic death are included here, but if not, they can be found in Honoria Murphy Donnelley's memoir "Sara and Gerald: Villa America and After." They are utterly poignant and heartrending.

[Melissa Baxter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just like eavesdropping on old friends. This book made me wish with all my heart that people still wrote letters. I loved following the long friendships of the famous "lost" from their initial connections to their final goodbyes.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually took the class from Dr. Miller, back in about 1998 or 1999 (I graduated that year), and I remember enjoying the class more than I thought I would.

Sadly, I don't recall a lot of the details of the book, but I remember that I enjoyed the book nearly as much as I did the class.

[Shane · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible collection of letters from one of the most incredible literary circles of the 20th century. These letters are a treasure and there's such wealth in them about friendship and art and aging and life and death from the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Dorothy Parker, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Alexander Woollcott, Robert Benchley, Archibald McLeish, and John Dos Passos. You can hear their voices in the letters (particularly Dorothy Parker, for me).

[Kevin Ellerbrock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps one of my favorite books that I have ever read. For someone that has read "Everyone was so Young", "A Moveable Feast", "Tender is the Night", etc; this compilation of personal letters really pulls everything together. Even reading biographies on Fitzgerald and Hemingway did not bring as much personal insight into these amazing people as this book achieved. It made me think about what friendship is really about and about pain, loss, and courage. It even made me tear up a few times.