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Loading... Everybody Was So Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy: A Lost Generation Love Story (original 1998; edition 1999)by Amanda Vaill (Author)Gifted artist Gerald Murphy and his elegant wife, Sara, were icons of the most enchanting period of our time; handsome, talented, and wealthy expatriate Americans, they were at the very center of the literary scene in Paris in the 1920s. In Everybody Was So Young, Amanda Vaill brilliantly portrays both the times in which the Murphys lived and the fascinating friends who flocked around them. Whether summering with Picasso on the French Riviera or watching bullfights with Hemingway in Pamplona, Gerald and Sara inspired kindred creative spirits like Dorothy Parker, Cole Porter, and F. Scott Fitzgerald (Nicole and Dick Diver in Tender is the Night were modeled after the Murphys). The era of the Lost Generation has always fascinated me, and Vaill provides a delicious keyhole look at this period and the people who made it so colorful. I am trying to wrap my brain around just how special Sara and Gerald Murphy's reputation was between post World War I and pre World War II. Just the who's who name dropping when describing their inner circle alone is spectacular. Even at an early age, both Sara and Gerald hobnobbed with notables (Sara was warned not to wear a long scarf while flying with the Wright brothers and Gerald was schoolmates with Dorothy (Rothschild) Parker). The Murphys vacation spot of choice was a rocky beach in the south of France. It was easy to rub elbows with the big names for Paris was a hotbed for creativity during the 1920s. Artists, photographers, writers, poets and fashionistas alike flocked to the city center and soon made their way to the French Riviera. Gerald and Sara knew how to entertain all ages. Their children were treated to elaborate parties including a scavenger hunt that took them by sailboat across the Mediterranean. It was a charmed life...until it wasn't. Interspersed with the good times are episodes of tragedy - illnesses, death, Fitzgerald's drinking and subsequent estrangements from longtime friends. But, it was probably the tragic deaths of their two sons, Baoth and Patrick that were the most devastating and marked the end of an era for Sara and Gerald. This is one of the best biographies I have read. Besides being well researched, it is elegantly and engagingly written. Heartbreaking at times, and at others enlightening. An example of its enlightening quality, who would have thought that Ernest Hemingway would have been such a devoted friend to Sara and Gerald Murphy's dying child. This is one of the best biographies I have read. Besides being well researched, it is elegantly and engagingly written. Heartbreaking at times, and at others enlightening. An example of its enlightening quality, who would have thought that Ernest Hemingway would have been such a devoted friend to Sara and Gerald Murphy's dying child. This is one of the best biographies I have read. Besides being well researched, it is elegantly and engagingly written. Heartbreaking at times, and at others enlightening. An example of its enlightening quality, who would have thought that Ernest Hemingway would have been such a devoted friend to Sara and Gerald Murphy's dying child. Everybody Was So Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy: A Lost Generation Love Story by Amanda Vaill is a detailed account of the life of artist Gerald Murphy and his wife Sara. They are probably now best known as the basis for Dick and Nicole Diver in Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. They Murphys were good friends with F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway and their families, in addition to many other modernist movers and shakers, many of whom they met in Paris in the early 1920s. The edition I read was around 360 pages long. It took around 100 pages for couple to meet, marry and then get to Paris. Not much of interest happens before they move to Europe and my main criticism is Amanda Vaill appears to be so in thrall to the Murphys, and has done so much research, that she chose to give the reader a lot of chronological detail. Whilst a logical way to structure any biography, I think this story would have benefitted from being structured thematically. The book contains some fascintating stories and insights into the world of the Murphys, the Fitzgeralds, the Hemingways, Picasso and his family, Dorothy Parker, Cole Porter, and so on, however for each nugget there's a lot of less interesting detail to work through. The Murphys' personal story has more than its fair share of tragedy, and the shadows that darken the story of this handsome, talented, and wealthy American couple, who were at the centre of the artistic scene in Paris and Antibes in the 1920s, is what sticks in my memory. I re-read this book after first reading The Paris Wife (about Hemingway's first marriage) and while re-reading A Moveable Feast (Hemingway's memoir about Paris in the 1920s). Everybody Was So Young is the portrait of the marriage of Sara and Gerald Murphy focusing on their life living as American expatriots in Paris in the 1920s. The Murphys were wealthy and beautiful and attracted to the artistic set living abroad. They befriended Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Picasso, and Leger to name just a few. Paris was not only less expensive but more permissive socially than the US during the 1920s and was a destination for young artists who wanted to practice their craft and live a good life. While Gerald dabbled in painting and creating theatrical backdrops, he and Sara were great and generous entertainers who set up house at Villa America in Antibes. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)759.13The arts Painting History, geographic treatment, biography United States and Canada United StatesLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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