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October Blood
The saga of three generations of women and their high-fashion magazine centers on Paula Fitzsimmons, through whose eyes is seen the startling world of her mother, her husband, her daughter, and her lover
Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
37 people want to read
About the author
Francine du Plessix Gray
32 books56 followersFrancine du Plessix Gray, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer and literary critic, was born in Warsaw, Poland, where her father, Vicomte Bertrand Jochaud du Plessix, was a French diplomat - the commercial attaché. She spent her early years in Paris, where a milieu of mixed cultures and a multilingual family (French father and Russian émigré mother) influenced her.
Widowed when her father died in battle, in 1940 du Plessix Gray's mother escaped France to New York with Francine. In 1942, her mother married Alexander Liberman, another White émigré from Russia, whom she had known in Paris as a child. He was a noted artist and later longtime editorial director of Vogue Magazine and then of Condé Nast Publications. The Libermans were socially prominent in media, art, and fashion circles.
Francine du Plessix Gray then grew up in New York City, and was naturalized a U.S. citizen in 1952. She was a scholarship student at Spence School. She attended Bryn Mawr College for two years, and in 1952 received her B.A. in philosophy from Barnard College, NY.
In 1957 she married painter Cleve Gray (1918-2004) with whom she had two sons.
Du Plessix Gray had a long and varied career, in the 1950s as reporter for several French magazines; book editor for Art in America New York City; staff writer for The New Yorker; several professorships, including at Columbia University.
Her most well-known book is Them: A Memory of Parents (2005). Her novels included Lovers and Tyrants (1976).
Widowed when her father died in battle, in 1940 du Plessix Gray's mother escaped France to New York with Francine. In 1942, her mother married Alexander Liberman, another White émigré from Russia, whom she had known in Paris as a child. He was a noted artist and later longtime editorial director of Vogue Magazine and then of Condé Nast Publications. The Libermans were socially prominent in media, art, and fashion circles.
Francine du Plessix Gray then grew up in New York City, and was naturalized a U.S. citizen in 1952. She was a scholarship student at Spence School. She attended Bryn Mawr College for two years, and in 1952 received her B.A. in philosophy from Barnard College, NY.
In 1957 she married painter Cleve Gray (1918-2004) with whom she had two sons.
Du Plessix Gray had a long and varied career, in the 1950s as reporter for several French magazines; book editor for Art in America New York City; staff writer for The New Yorker; several professorships, including at Columbia University.
Her most well-known book is Them: A Memory of Parents (2005). Her novels included Lovers and Tyrants (1976).
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 20, 2014
I get the sense that the primary message this book is sending is that trends, which are used to provide an illusion of substance or a false character, are ubiquitous and a sort of provide the sort of cataclysmic narrative that we use to tell our life stories. Tied up in that is a rea-ee-eee--eeeally meandering plot about family that takes two steps away from drama for every step that it takes toward it. The language is beautiful and flowing and the characters show up on every page, but not. that. much. happens. Interesting if you dig on fashion and food, but pretty much meh.
April 22, 2010
Read 123 pages. Then all of a sudden it became nauseating. Pompous. Forget it.
May 25, 2010
Fabulous! A mix of fashion, culture, and insanity. A wonderful telling of a mixed-up 20th Century family full of demons, intelligence, and strangeness.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews