Ex-Wife

I’m discovering that, even more than historical fiction, I love reading stories written during the particular era in which they are set. The combination of the author’s first-hand knowledge and the reader’s hindsight makes for a richly layered literary treat. This best-seller was published mere months before the stock market crash of ‘29 and Parrott’s contemporaries no doubt commiserated with the characters’ disillusionment with a mostly theoretical sexual freedom. But as our heroine Patricia learns that endings are also beginnings, I found this unexpectedly moving novel more hopeful than wistful. I also realized that while the 1950s may have spawned “teenagers”, Flappers were the first women to experience a life stage that we now gratefully take for granted: young singlehood. So put on Rhapsody in Blue, mix yourself a gin fizz or four, and soak up the spirit of twenty-somethings in 1920’s NYC.