Book Summary and Reviews of Flappers by Judith Mackrell

Book Summary

A new look at the movement that shattered the boundaries of conventional femininity

Glamorized, mythologized, and demonized, the women of the 1920s prefigured the 1960s in their determination to reinvent the way they lived. Judith Mackrell's Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation explores the ethos of that restless generation, starting with its first fashionable acts of rebellion before World War I and continuing to the Wall Street crash of 1929, discovering what exemplified the range and daring of the flapper spirit.

We meet Lady Diana Cooper, whose coterie included some of the most influential intellectuals and aristocrats of the time; Nancy Cunard, the steamship heiress; Tallulah Bankhead, the politically outspoken actress; Zelda Fitzgerald, whose tumultuous relationship with F. Scott was often tabloid fodder; Josephine Baker, the African American dancer, singer, and actress who relinquished her citizenship and moved to France; and Tamara de Lempicka, the Polish-born art deco painter. These women were far from typical flappers - they made themselves prominent among the artists, icons, and heroines of their age. Talented, reckless, and willful, with personalities that transcended their class and background, they rewrote their destinies in remarkable, entertaining, and tragic ways.

Nearly a century later, their stories continue to fascinate as we grapple with the contradictions they faced and match ourselves against the reach of their desires.