Holy Skirts

Rene Steinke's Holy Skirts is a powerful and sweeping historical epic, an all-encompassing novel that fully merges fact with fiction. It's an audacious portrait of the early twentieth century, covering two continents and transporting the reader into worlds of bohemian society in both Berlin, and New York. Holy Skirts tells of poetess Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, her life of art and writing, and her contributions to the Dada movement, which included such notables as Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp. Elsa, as a young girl, always new that she was different. Growing up in the provincial town of Swinemunde, Germany, she seemed to develop a very different way of looking at the world. Her father was disparate and uncaring and her mother, riddled with syphilitic madness, was left to die in an asylum. Elsa, awakened to the possibilities of life, decides to seek her fortune in Berlin, but she doesn't really have any obvious skills apart from her obvious physical beauty. Elsa realizes from an early age that men are attracted to her, and she uses this to her advantage. Sexually voracious, she revels in her sexuality, and she freely admits, "to be a woman was to be looked at. But what was seen was partly up to her." It was like a dream Elsa sometimes had, "when she was the princess and the prince, the beauty and the hero." Defying convention and ignoring the stuffy feminine mores of the time, Elsa gets a job at the Wintergarden Palace, a saucy Berlin Cabaret, where girls often appear semi-nude. Together with her friend Natalye, they unashamedly court and have sex with men, sometimes even asking for money. A hedonist by nature, Elsa wants to stretch each of her senses, piety just doesn't interest her, "only the bright flash of inner sight, when a hole tore through the ordinary world." Elsa isn't as successful in married life: August, her first husband, is unable to consummate their marriage, and is too artistically obsessed with his own causes; her second husband Franz Trove, travels with her to New York - the Americans with their cowboys and pilgrims - but ultimately abandons her, and her third, the Baron Joseph von Freytag-Loringhoven - the love of her life is an impulsive gambler, who makes her feel as if the whole world were infused with the erotic - ends up back to Germany leaving Elsa innocently waiting for him, trying to survive on the streets of New York. Hoping against hope for Joseph to return, Elsa gradually falls in with, and becomes a doyenne of the East Village art society. It is in the Village where fortunes are accrued just standing near a window next to someone who remarks on the heat, "or because one's good friend had offered a cigarette to some painter." For Elsa it was mostly a life of poverty and hardship, where the rent remained unpaid, and where she managed to snatch jobs here and there, mainly working as an artist's model. But Elsa's life became one of deep-seated freedom, conducted with an arrogant disregard for any impera

One of the best books I've read in the past 6 months! Ms. Steinke's writing is masterful, sensuous and deeply satisfying. Baroness Elsa is unique, artistic, intelligent and decades ahead of her time in her writing and self adornment. While reading of her life and times the world of 1920's Greenwich Village is so well described as to place the reader in the streets with it's outrageous scenes, characters and "signs of the times". What a time to be an artist, a German one at that, trying to reach out to people to understand your poetry and self. Being from Wisconsin with students at the University of Wisconsin where copies of the Little Review are stored, I am anxious to pursue looking at copies which should shed additional light on this character. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it. It is very literary and heavily descriptive and should appeal to readers of such historical fiction as Middlesex, Crimson Petal and the White and Master Butcher's Singing Club.

Reinke's fictionalized account of the Baroness Elsa's life is hard to put down. The writing in the book only highlights the charming character that Reinke has brought to life - showing that Elsa needed little help in showcasing her own brilliance. Though largely ignored by history (I don't know many people who read her poem's in school), she led an amazing life. The book jacket calls her a proto punk, which I would agree with, if you take away all the negativity that surrounds such an image. Elsa herself is a contradiction. Throughout her life, she remained strangely naive, in regards to both men and women, but she also created a sophisticated persona, one that masked a lonely young woman who was still reeling from the loss of her mother, the one person that seemed to understand what made Elsa Elsa. Besides a wonderful main character, Reinke has brought to life some of the members of the Dadaist circle, giving a glimpse into the imagined mind of Marchel Duchamp and a slightly lecherous and leering Man Ray. But it's Elsa determination to live her artistic life, to live as she feels is true to herself, that is most clearly recognized in the book and it is one that makes Elsa so unique not only to her time but to ours.

Steinke's novel is a considerable achievement, a careful balancing of historical fact and fiction, the life of Baroness Elsa von Fretag-Loringhoven, a walking example of the Dada movement in the New York art scene. Eccentric even as a young girl, Elsa Ploetz runs away from her home in Swinemunde, Germany, to Berlin, where she gets her first job on the stage of the Wintergarten Cabaret. Her mother has died in an asylum and, unable to endure her new stepmother, Elsa seeks her fortune in the city, around 1907. Elsa revels in her sexuality, a favorite of the men who see her onstage and entertain her after hours. Ironically, it is Elsa's liberal attitude about men that brings her the most difficulty. Indiscriminate, she goes from man to man, enjoying the blush of youthful sensuality, her body tingling with expectations after each new amorous adventure: "I can never bow before men. I can only fling myself." Drawn to an assortment of males, believing their promises and suffering the consequences, Elsa is unable to control her romantic fancies, even when reality strikes. It is simply Elsa's nature, this open-hearted acceptance of possibilities; Steinke captures this unique aspect of the woman's personality perfectly. Elsa's first marriage is to architect August Lydell, but she is a virago to him; he is afraid of what she might take from his creative spirit, unable to consummate the marriage. Eventually Elsa marries poet Franz Trove, pair touring Europe, as he follows his muse. World War I threatens and the couple moves to New York. Elsa writes her own poetry while living with a dissatisfied husband who finally abandons her. Then Elsa meets the most meaningful man in her life, the Baron Joseph von Freytag-Loringhoven, her soul mate. The Baron, a gambler, hopes to redeem his fortune in Germany while Elsa waits for him in New York and it is there, alone, that she makes her mark on the Greenwich Village society of artists and sycophants. Elsa fashions garments from the oddities she discovers when wandering the city streets, assembling a series of outrageous outfits, proclaiming herself an artist/poet. She gradually claims the notice of the Village avant-garde, unafraid to shock the pretentiousness of that society, whether wearing gentlemen's suits or a bustle with a blinking taillight. Ever more extreme in behavior and dress, Elsa becomes a friend and confidant of Marcel Duchamp and through him, finds entry into the rarified art circles. Filmed nude by Man Ray, Elsa is beyond the cutting edge of the New York scene. Steinke inhabits Elsa to the marrow of her bones, intuiting thoughts, dreams and motivations of this character. In a time of extraordinary inventions, the Baroness achieves notoriety while chasing fame, a fringe-dweller of repute in the art world. From youth in Germany to the mean streets of New York that Elsa wanders in a poetic fugue, Steinke has created a memorable portrait of an eccentric and a visionary, a new woman in a new century. Lu