All-Night Party: The Women of Bohemian Greenwich Village and Harlem, 1913-1930

What a thrill to read about such openly free women being themselves and creating fabulous literature and music to keep us going through the years. These women are my heros! Brilliant! Bravo for the ladies. I have purchased this book for all of my special women friends.

What a group of women they were, nonpareils all. They tossed aside convention to illuminate a period marked by freedom of expression, a disregard for racial barriers, and amazing creativity. The Victorian Ea was on its way out, and they were high kicking it aside. The years 1913 - 1930 in New York City were described as a period of "Going Public with one's animal nature." This was especially true in Greenwich Village and Harlem where white bohemians joined Black Americans in a celebration of jazz and the blues. Consider just a few in Andrea Barnet's remarkable cast of characters: Bessie Smith, Isadora Duncan, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Margaret Sanger, Gertrude Stein, and that's only a sampling. Each chapter focuses on a different woman - her life, her pals, and her contributions to this electric change. Mina Loy was an artist and poet. British born she lived in Florence with her husband and two children, ages 9 and 7. When her husband ran off with his mistress Loy determined that she must chart her own course and, in order to do this, she must go to New York City. Leaving her children behind with their Italian nurse she set sail. Tall and extremely attractive she was an eye-catching beauty whose poetry would be widely published. Edna St, Vincent Millay, a young Maine poet already published in her mid twenties, set tongues wagging with her celebration of the Armistice in 1918 - she and two fellows rode back and forth all night on the Staten Island ferry, chasing along beaches the trio drank jug wine until dawn. At that time Millay returned to her cold water flat and sat down to furiously pound out more poetry. Who could forget Bessie Smith, all six feet and 200+ pounds of her? "The funk is flyin'" was one of her favorite phrases and she happily ate at a generously laden kitchen table, washing down her food with homemade liquor. With more than 50 unforgettable photographs and an exciting, comprehensive text Barnet has painted a colorful portrait of the Harlem Renaissance and the women who made it happen. Equal parts history and biography, "All-Night Party" is not to be missed. - Gail Cooke

Well written and very easy to read, this book is a very good introduction to the pioneers of 'feminism' (I dread using that word, a better phrase would be women who chose to define themselves, who chose to live their lives the way they wanted to). But in some ways the author's reach exceeded her grasp, the reader is given only fragments, brief snapshots of wildly different women that are only tenuously connected by their sex. Mina Loy and Bessie Smith were as radically different from each other as they were from most woman of their times, they didn't so much live in their times as they rose above it. The author just doesn't give enough depth or insight into their lives that I can see any connection. Again this is a very readable book and there are golden tidbits here..Jane Heap is a revelation and the treatment of her life and relationship is excellent. I guess you can't really hold against the author if at the end you say to yourself "I wish there had been more!"