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East Side West Side
In English, 382 Pages
376 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1947
3 people are currently reading
173 people want to read
About the author
Marcia Davenport
59 books25 followersAmerican author and music critic. She was born Marcia Glick, daughter of Bernard Glick and opera singer Alma Gluck, later stepdaughter of violinist Efrem Zimbalist when Alma Gluck remarried.
Davenport traveled extensively with her parents and was educated intermittently at the Friends School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the Shipley School at Bryn Mawr. She began at Wellesley College but eloped to Pittsburgh in 1923 to marry Fred D. Clarke. Eventually she earned her B.A. at the University of Grenoble. Her first child was born in 1924, but in 1925 she divorced Clarke.
She took an advertising copywriting job to support herself and her daughter. In 1928 she began at the editorial staff of The New Yorker, where she worked until 1931. In 1929, she married Russell Davenport, who soon after became editor of Fortune. Davenport's second daughter was born in 1934. That same year she began as the music critic of Stage magazine.
Davenport had close ties through her mother and stepfather to the classical music world and particularly to the heady opera world of Europe and America in the first half of the 20th century. She was first celebrated as a writer for her first book, Mozart, the first published American biography of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Her marriage to Russell Davenport ended in 1944.
She also wrote several popular novels, notably The Valley of Decision, a 1940s bestseller made into a successful movie with Greer Garson and Gregory Peck.
Davenport traveled extensively with her parents and was educated intermittently at the Friends School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the Shipley School at Bryn Mawr. She began at Wellesley College but eloped to Pittsburgh in 1923 to marry Fred D. Clarke. Eventually she earned her B.A. at the University of Grenoble. Her first child was born in 1924, but in 1925 she divorced Clarke.
She took an advertising copywriting job to support herself and her daughter. In 1928 she began at the editorial staff of The New Yorker, where she worked until 1931. In 1929, she married Russell Davenport, who soon after became editor of Fortune. Davenport's second daughter was born in 1934. That same year she began as the music critic of Stage magazine.
Davenport had close ties through her mother and stepfather to the classical music world and particularly to the heady opera world of Europe and America in the first half of the 20th century. She was first celebrated as a writer for her first book, Mozart, the first published American biography of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Her marriage to Russell Davenport ended in 1944.
She also wrote several popular novels, notably The Valley of Decision, a 1940s bestseller made into a successful movie with Greer Garson and Gregory Peck.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 25, 2017
This is an excellent story. I've read it several times because the main character is a woman who despite her failed marriage goes on with her life. In fact she's not afraid of falling in love again. The writer describes places (her apartment and Manhattan), feelings and daily routines in a very detailed and appealing way.
May 31, 2025
Marcia Davenport strikes again!!! With the polar opposite of The Valley of Decision, which spanned 70 years and 4 generations -- this was about one woman over a single dramatic week. Typically gorgeous writing as we have come to expect from Marcia, wonderful descriptions of New York and Jessie's lifestyle and her relationships with the people around her. I did find the ending a little tough to understand or square away with what had come before but I do think it was the right way to end it...
July 22, 2012
Just reading it again now! I think what I liked the first time is how it reads as an ode to post-war New York...maybe it seems a little hokie now.
April 23, 2023
an interesting story of society in the late 1940s in nyc
April 29, 2009
Quite quietly sexy, I loved it. The film sadly was not as good!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews