#Ursula Parrott

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Ex-Wife, published anonymously in 1929, was a succès de scandale. The very title aggressively challenged American mores and morals; divorce was almost unheard of in the middle classes at the time. And Manhattan high life in the 1920s (the novel takes place between 1923 and 1927) gave the prurient everything they could wish: not just divorce, but promiscuity, abortion, smoking, and drinking.

And I had, for an instant, that feeling that New York was an altogether beautiful place to live, no matter what happened to me living in it—a comforting feeling that had come to me sometimes, of late, when I stopped looking to people for comfort.

Narrated by Patricia, it tells of her life after her husband walked out on her. She goes from grief and despair to acceptance to indifference while becoming increasingly successful as an advertising copywriter in fashion, and bedding numerous men. Her friend Lucia, a slightly older and more experienced divorcee, supports and mentors her.

Surprisingly, the book is vehemently anti-feminist. The 1920s were a time when women could vote and were free of Victorian behavioral constraints, but systemic sexism ran deep and went largely unnoticed—at least by Patricia and Lucia.

The book was filmed in 1930 as The Divorcée, starring Norma Shearer, who won her only Oscar for it.

Norma Shearer in The Divorcee

In the forward to the 2023 edition (whose cover is shown above), Alissa Bennett writes, "It's easy to get caught in the trap of Ex-Wife's nostalgic charm; there are phonographs and jazz clubs and dresses from Vionnet; there are verboten cocktails and towering new buildings that reach toward a New York skyline so young that it still reveals its stars."

The author's son, Marc Parrott, agreed. "The New York described here," he wrote in an afterward to the 1989 edition, reprinted in the current edition, "and this was true, I think, for 20 years or more—was much smaller, much more intimate, much safer and much cheaper than the city from the '50s on to the present. It was also cleaner. My mother called it 'shining.'"

This is how Patricia and Lucia react to Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue:

"The tune matches New York," Lucia said. "The New York we know. It has gaiety and colour and irrelevancy and futility and glamour as beautifully blended as the ingredients in crêpes suzette." I said, "It makes me think of skyscrapers and Harlem and liners sailing and newsboys calling extras." "It makes me think I’m twenty years old and on the way to owning the city," Lucia said. "Start it over again, will you?"

Second & fourth photos: NYC Past Third photo: eBay

[hoeratius]

Ex-Wife book of all time, what a ride...

[eva248]

Lecturas de mayo. Primera semana

La revuela de las cariátides / Petros Márkaris. Editorial Tusquets, 2024 La pandemia ha quedado atrás, y Kostas Jaritos ya es jefe de las Fuerzas de Seguridad del Ática, un logro que celebrará con su familia y sus amigos. Después de recibir las felicitaciones del ministro del Interior, regresa a Jefatura… esta vez con uniforme. Entre los cambios que provoca ese nombramiento, el más importante es…

[maudeboggins]

very interesting review of the divorcée in motion picture magazine, saying that the story of the novel is made "much more credible"? which i'd definitely disagree with lol. it's a good movie but definitely a weird adaptation of ex-wife

[ajl1963]

Deco Doings - October, 2023

Autumn by William Welsh, 1930. Image from Pinterest. Here are some Art Deco events to partake during October. Metropolitan Museum of Art Art for the Millions: American Culture and Politics in the 1930s (In Person Event)      Thursday, September 7 – Sunday, December 10, 2023, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY Ida York Abelman (American, New York 1910–2002)Man and Machine,…

[nymphol8gy]

Ex-wife Grade A, I was. Sex-appeal, dresses well, looks young, dances lightly, can make wisecracks, and is self-supporting, Lets a man talk, Does not gold-dig, except for another round of liqueurs after dinner. Never passes out of gets raucous or gets sick. Not susceptible to the "I want you, I want you, I want you attitude, but likely to succumb to 'pity me, my life is lonely' — once with any man.

[lilithsaintcrow]

“Why was the most famous author of the Jazz Age hired to adapt a story by a totally unknown writer? And who on earth was Ursula Parrott?"

[hazeykatie2]

"I hoped I look devastated; I hope I looked lovely."

-Ursula Parrot

[fastcardotmp3]

Thinking about all the women artists and writers who have been forgotten for all of their groundbreaking work, pieces that were widely consumed even during their time only to be discredited and disallowed into the wider canon of great artists because stories by or for women aren't taken seriously.

Thinking about it in specific relation to Nancy Wheeler, whose first foray into storytelling was in making sure a young girl wasn't remembered wrong. Barb wasn't a runaway, wasn't a reckless kid uncaring about the worried friends and family she left behind, and Nancy wasn't going to let her be.

Thinking about novels written and published, sold to be adapted into what will one day be deemed classic horror cinema without anyone doing more than glossing over the spot in the credits which lists based on the book by...

Thinking about Nancy's name not making it into that canon of great artists despite inspiring decades of a burgeoning genre yet to come, but also thinking about a descendant by the name of Buckley going to grad school nearly a century later and recognizing the same name that shows up in old, old journal entries from a great great aunt that they've felt connected to for reasons they're only just starting to understand about their own way of loving.

Reels of film and pages of manuscripts.

Newspaper articles and reviews by people who didn't get it and a half-written memoir which never saw the light of day because she was under investigation by a branch of the government no one's ever heard of.

(Buckley shows up there, a mirror to a letter found in an attic by miraculous, generational pack-rat tendencies alone.)

Nancy is successful in her life, sure, for the constant and forever ruminations on grief, on violence, on the intersect between the two, the way women love each other, but she's forgotten.

For a long time, she's forgotten.

There's a descendant by the name of Buckley who remembers her name, though.

And it's only right that she's the one who listens to the stories Nancy needed to tell the world all these years later.

It's only right, when it was Aunt Robin who listened first.

[sprachgefuehle]

First of all: as someone who would also love some weird/obscure books that aren’t YA, when you have a list would you be comfortable posting the recs you’ve gotten?

Secondly:

Hag-Seed, by Margaret Atwood. Retelling of Shakespeare’s Tempest. Really good.

American Gods, Neil gaiman. Long, kind of dense, good fantasy.

Stories, a short story collection edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio.

Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell

Watership Down, Richard Adams

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Becky Chambers

The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson

The Female Persuasion, Meg Wolitzer

Drive Your Plow over the Bones Of the Dead, Olga Tokarczuk

People of the Book, Geraldine brooks

Dogsbody, Dianna Wynne Jones

The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

World War Z, Max Brooks (no really)

The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss—I’m genuinely unsure if this one counts as YA or not, but I came to it as an adult reader well past my YA phase and loved it, and it does not “feel” like a YA novel, so I’m including it. I’ll warn that it is the first of two books published in a proposed trilogy, and the third one has been stalled for like ten years, but genuinely I think it is worth a read even if the trilogy is never finished.

Ladies of the Rachmaninoff Eyes, Henry van Dyke—I read this recently when I got it in a subscription box that focuses on reprints of older, out of print books the editors think deserve more circulation than they’ve gotten. I enjoyed it. Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott was in the same box, though I haven’t read that one yet.

Ah sorry, your ask must have slipped past me in my notifs! I don't really have a list but almost everyone added their recs in the notes, so you can find all of them there.

Out of those, I just read Schwarzenberg by Stefan Heym. It might be a bit dry for some people but it was just right up my alley and I will be thinking about it for some time for sure. And currently I am reading Perdido Street Station by China Miévielle. Final judgement is still pending but it does fall into the vague genre category of Weird Fiction and so far I like it.

And thanks for your recs of course!

[chantalstacys]

Books that feel like old hollywood movies?

my faves!

♡ ex-wife by ursula parrott

♡ rules of civility by amor towels

♡ miss pettigrew lives for a day by winifred watson

♡ auntie mame by patrick dennis

♡ gigi by colette

♡ the lady of the camellias by alexandre dumas fils

♡ gentlemen prefer blondes by anita loos

♡ breakfast at tiffany’s by truman capote

♡ rebecca by daphne du maurier

nonfiction!

♡ lana: the lady, the legend, the truth by lana turner

♡ marilyn monroe private and undisclosed & the girl: marilyn monroe, the seven year itch and the birth of an unlikely feminist both by michelle morgan

♡ dream lovers by dodd darin

♡ rita hayworth: the time, the place and the woman by john kobal

♡ audrey hepburn, an elegant spirit by sean hepburn ferrer (more of a coffee table book, but it’s great!)

♡ audrey at home by luca dotti (it’s just a must-have)

♡ myrna loy: being and becoming by james kotsilibas-davis & myrna loy

♡ evenings with cary grant by nancy nelson

♡ ava: my story by ava gardner

[mollyyoung]

A squib on Ursula Parrott for the New York Times Magazine.