The Biography of Alice B. Toklas

This biography fills in any gaps one might have regarding Gertrude Stein. The biography flows very, very nicely, with separate chapters on Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and WWI doughboys. With the discussion of Sylvia Beach and James Joyce, and the passing mention of Gertrude Stein having lunch with Roger Fry, one senses the ghost of Virginia Woolf hovering nearby. The chapter, late in the book, on Alice's cooking skills, is worth the price of the book. The author provides an outstanding appendix, notes section, and bibliography, as well as an excellent index. On a completely different note, one sees again the influence of the Bloomsbury group in England on the pre-Raphaelite painters, and the corresponding influence of Gertrude Stein on the continent on the modernist painters, most notably Picasso. Perhaps not "influence," but rather support for these new painters, who otherwise might not have become as successful.