Lead Review
- Book: The Manhattan Girls
- Location: New York City (NYC)
- Author: Gill Paul
At the heart of this novel is the infamous Dorothy Parker. She is someone of whom I had heard but knew little about, and nothing about her, her associates and friends. She was born into the Rothschild family and it is said she didn’t have the easiest of childhoods, which perhaps in part gave expression to her exuberant behaviour as a young woman, and her deep need to be loved.
This is the story of this extraordinary woman and her three friends, all part of the ‘in’ crowd in Manhattan – Jane, Peggy and Winifred. They formed the Algonquin Round Table, a Bridge Club in contrast to the men in their social group, who favoured poker. This allowed them to come together, quaff illegal alcohol and ponder their lives. Individually they made forays into what was still very much a man’s world, which tested their ingenuity and resilience, encountering so many obstacles in their everyday lives. Women faced innumerable challenges if they didn’t want to conform to the norms of the day.
Their stories are set against the era of Prohibition, an edgy and sparkling (for some) time of history, and much takes place in and around the Algonquin Hotel, a New York City designated landmark – near Times Square – which opened in 1902. This was the era of the Flapper, when young women started to embrace life, often appearing outrageous and flamboyant, and who were the epitome of the colourful Roaring Twenties. What the author does well is capture the sense of the era, you can almost hear the music in the background, smell the home-brewed gin and sense the knife edge situation of the ‘broads’, who were intent on pushing the boundaries. It was still of course very much a man’s world and she really does capture the heady and precarious world of womanhood in the era.
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