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lola425's review against another edition
4.0
Very interesting biography. At every page I was jotting notes to go back and look at things later. But then again I am a sucker for twenties era lesbians.
irishannie's review against another edition
3.0
I always wanted to know more about Esther Murphy, Gerald's sister. Although Cohen doesn't say it, I wonder if Esther was autistic. I new a bit about Mercedes Acosta and nothing about Madge Garland. Because all three were lesbians who lived in the 20s and 30s, they knew each other. I hope Cohen writes more about Sybille Bedford Esther's love to whom the book was dedicated.
carolanncdematos's review against another edition
2.0
‘All We Know’ is a book about three women who all lived and loved in the 1920s/30s. All three women crossed paths – running across each other at cocktail parties, or at Parisian salons, or through the sharing of a lover as all three explored both male and female sexual relationships. But mainly, all three women have one characteristic in common – or at least according to author Lisa Cohen – that each lady in question did not live up to their ‘potential’.
‘It is a cliche of American life that we like our brilliance to flair up and die young, we like it to crash and burn.’
Esther Murphy was the first lady explored in this book. She was also the inspiration for the book’s title, as she tended to start her conversations with ‘All we know…’ READ MORE
Explore Carolann's entire bookshelf at Her Literary Salon
‘It is a cliche of American life that we like our brilliance to flair up and die young, we like it to crash and burn.’
Esther Murphy was the first lady explored in this book. She was also the inspiration for the book’s title, as she tended to start her conversations with ‘All we know…’ READ MORE
Explore Carolann's entire bookshelf at Her Literary Salon
jacob_wren's review
5.0
Lisa Cohen writes:
“What is style?” the American modernist Marguerite Young has asked. Her own reply: “Style is thinking.” A riddle of unconscious excitements and conscious choices, style is a way to fascinate oneself and others – and to transform oneself and the world. It is an attempt to make the ordinary and the tragic more bearable. Style is a didactic impulse that aspires to banish doubt, a form of certainty about everything elusive and uncertain. Style is at once fleeting and lasting, and it has everything to do with excess – even when its excesses are those of austerity or self-denial. It is too much and it is nothing at all, and it tells all kinds of stories about the seams between public and private life. As a form of pleasure, for oneself and for an audience, and as an expression of the wish to exceed and confound expectations, to be exceptional, style is a response to the terror of invisibility and isolation – a wish for inclusion. Above all, it is a productive act that, although it concerns itself with the creation and experience of brilliant surfaces, is powerful because it unsettles what we think we know about the superficial and the profound.
“What is style?” the American modernist Marguerite Young has asked. Her own reply: “Style is thinking.” A riddle of unconscious excitements and conscious choices, style is a way to fascinate oneself and others – and to transform oneself and the world. It is an attempt to make the ordinary and the tragic more bearable. Style is a didactic impulse that aspires to banish doubt, a form of certainty about everything elusive and uncertain. Style is at once fleeting and lasting, and it has everything to do with excess – even when its excesses are those of austerity or self-denial. It is too much and it is nothing at all, and it tells all kinds of stories about the seams between public and private life. As a form of pleasure, for oneself and for an audience, and as an expression of the wish to exceed and confound expectations, to be exceptional, style is a response to the terror of invisibility and isolation – a wish for inclusion. Above all, it is a productive act that, although it concerns itself with the creation and experience of brilliant surfaces, is powerful because it unsettles what we think we know about the superficial and the profound.
alisonrose711's review
2.0
This one unfortunately suffered I think from too much authorship and too little editing. I admit to skimming past some pages because they were just getting...boring. There was too much space devoted to two of the subjects - Esther Murphy and Madge Garland - and too little to the third - Mercedes de Acosta. Murphy and Garland were certainly interesting, but the amount of detail and tangential stuff in their sections was unwieldy and made the sections drag. I almost feel like they would have worked better as more tightly written longform essays. The author did a lot of work and it's impressive, but unless you have the same level of intense interest in every little bit of these lives as she does, the book can be a bit of a slog. Still, I did enjoy learning about all three of them. Yay for envelope-pushing, iconoclastic, unconventional women!
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