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5th out of 15 books
—
14 voters
Everybody Was So Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy: A Lost Generation Love Story
by
Amanda Vaill (Goodreads Author),
Gerald Murphy, Sara Murphy
Gifted artist Gerald Murphy and his elegant wife, Sara, were icons of the most enchanting period of our time; handsome, talented, and wealthy expatriate Americans, they were at the very center of the literary scene in Paris in the 1920s. In Everybody Was So Young--one of the best reviewed books of 1998--Amanda Vaill brilliantly portrays both the times in which the Murphys...more
Paperback, 470 pages
Published
April 20th 1999
by Broadway Books
(first published 1998)
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Far more than any professional historian, Shakespeare is responsible for whatever notions most of us possess about English medieval history. Anyone who appreciates the dramatic action of Shakespeare's history plays but is confused by much of the historical detail will welcome this guide to the Richards, Edwards, Henrys, Warwicks and Norfolks who ruled and fought across Shakespeare's page and stage. Not only theater-goers and students, but today's film-goers who want to enrich their understanding...more
I resented having to place this book down and exit the world that Sara and Gerald Murphy invented for themselves. It was all too easy to slip into the grace and charm of Villa America, or to envision the full-tilt excitement of painting backdrops for Parade and hosting the Ballets Russes set for a drunken soiree in honor of Les Noces ending with Stravinsky jumping through a laurel wreath. (Seeing the 'Misia, Queen of Paris' exhibit at the Musee de Orsay and the Paul Guilliame collection at the O...more
I read Calvin Tompkins' Living Well Is the Best Revenge, which was written while Gerald and Sara Murphy were still alive. It's good, but Everybody Was So Young is better--it carries them past their golden decade in France to the more difficult 30s and 40s until their deaths. Murphy was a serious but fundamentally amateur painter whose work is now rightly considered among the best American painting of the 20th century. But his painting was not the couple's primary gift to culture--it was being th...more
I actually started reading this book before the new film adaptation of “The Great Gatsby” came out. I think that a person can mature in one’s understanding of the “Roaring 20s” and 30s by reading this book. The reader who cracks this book purely to indulge a guilty pleasure and immerse oneself in a sparkling period of great parties, beauty and artistic advancements is bound to find a very different experience. If nothing else, it left me with the understanding that every time period has its triu...more
I had read this book many years ago and recently reread it, something I do rarely, but it was well worth it in this case. An extremely well researched and well written biography of a couple, Sara and Gerald Murphy, who were central to many of the artists and writers who emerged in the early part of the 1900s. With a home in Antibes, they hosted many luminaries such as Hemingway, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Leger and Picasso.They were at the core of this world adding ballast, encouragement and of...more
"Everyone Was So Young" is the love story or Gerald and Sara Murphy, two of the most glamorous people in the American-in-Paris set. Amanda Vaill brilliantly portrays both the times in which the Murphys lived and the fascinating friends who flocked around them. Whether summering with Picasso on the French Riviera or watching bullfights with Hemingway in Pamplona, Gerald and Sara inspired kindred creative spirits like Dorothy Parker, Cole Porter, and F. Scott Fitzgerald (Nicole and Dick Diver in T...more
Elegiac biography of the couple that embodies the twenties and the Fitzgerald era. It's all, of course, incredibly sad. But filled with beauty, intelligence, wit, art, and triumphs. Ah, to have known those people... The talent of Vaill is that she gives us the sensation that we actually meet them and know them - it's as if we were invited to one of the fabulous parties these people organized and shared. She brings the Murphys back to life with poignancy and much tenderness, and with them, it's a...more
Gerald and Sara Murphy were the benefactors of artists and writers and living models for their works. This biography of a marriage provides an inside view of the makings of Modern Art, and of modern lives.
It should be required reading for anybody interested in the lives & works of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, Dorothy Parker, Archibald MacLeish, Cole Porter, Pablo Picasso, Fernand Leger, Joan Miro, Igor Stravinsky, the Ballets Russes, and for fans of "The Man Who C...more
It should be required reading for anybody interested in the lives & works of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, Dorothy Parker, Archibald MacLeish, Cole Porter, Pablo Picasso, Fernand Leger, Joan Miro, Igor Stravinsky, the Ballets Russes, and for fans of "The Man Who C...more
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Looking at the reviews here, you wouldn't get it - but in fact, The Murphys weren't particularly rich. They chose Paris - and then the South of France - because they were places of beauty and civility where a dollar might be stretched to its limit. And did they know how to stretch it! On very little beyond loving support and sometimes elbow grease, they helped to midwife, groom and finance much of what became "Modern" in the first half of the 20th Century.
In an earlier book about her parents, Ho...more
In an earlier book about her parents, Ho...more
A story of great triumph and great tragedy about the couple who discovered and popularized the French Riviera. Gerald and Sara Murphy counted among their friends the leading lights of the "Lost Generation" and their European counterparts, including Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Dos Passos, Cole Porter, Picasso, Leger, and many others. Gerald was an artist in his own right, whose work prefigures Pop Art by 50 years, and Sara a raconteur and muse to many of the era's leading lights. Amanda Vaill builds o...more
It's one of the best biographies I've read, rich in context while clearly focused on the central characters. It brings to life this extraordinary couple and the extraordinary time they lived in -- the Gilded Age, WWI, the Twenties, the Depression, WWII and beyond. It fills in the gaps left in other works such as "A Movable Feast" and adds dimensions to the Murphys' famous friends. The author portrays the Murphys in their own words, using the ample collections of letters they left behind. It make...more
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At the epicenter of the European modernist movement were Sara and Gerald Murphy. This “golden” couple” were a wealthy expatriate family that moved the French Riviera following World War I in the early twentieth century. Sara was an heiress and Gerald’s family owned the Mark Cross Company. Originally neither of their parents approved of their marriage. Sara’s family felt she was marrying below her station and Gerald’s family felt Sara was unsuitable. Looking to get away from their controlling par...more
This is a fabulous love story of the first Boomers with zip, Sara & Gerald Murphy. They lived their lives with brilliant creativity from the turn of the century to become expatriates in Paris in the 1920's. Loved by artists and friends in the artistic milieu, their world was shattered by personal tragedy. The Murphy story is one where they bravely faced life, steered their boat towards a different port, with their marriage in tact to final contentment.
A fascinating look at an era and generation. I read this book over a year ago and find it still haunts me. We visited Cap d"Antibes last May, where Sara and Gerald established their Riviera home. What a thrill it was to walk along the Garoupe Beach - which they had discovered - trying to envision what it must once have been like before the Murphys helped to popularize the area. Now, of course, it's thick with tourists. But the imagination can take flight!
Ok, I love love love this time period. The 1920's in France. But this book is so detailed that you have to be a super fan to get through it. I did read the whole thing but it was tough to get all the way through. Interesting relationship between Sara and Gerald and certainly was fun to live vicariously through them. The pirate treasure hunt sounded amazing. But again, who want to know who attended every party and what they wore.
Better than expected biography of Gerald and Sara Murphy, members of NY society from the lost generation between the two wars. They sought a life filled with art, friends and literature away from the pressures of their class, and so moved to Europe. They mingled with the well-known of their time: Cole Porter, Archibald MacLeish, Picasso, Dorothy Parker. Most of all they were generous, giving money when it was needed and a shoulder to cry on or a room to stay in. They were creative and this book...more
A fantastic biography of a fascinating couple who are frequently overlooked today - but who were in the midst of Great Doings by artists and writers in the twenties and thirties. They themselves were a fascinating pair - creative, artistic, generous, and sensitive, working to build a different life for themselves, filled with beauty and joy. A great read, wonderfully written and researched.
I've given this book about 120 pages and am abandoning -- just not a book for my cup of tea. I admire the author's dedication to telling this story and love the intersections of the Murphy's lives with the great authors, artists, poets of their time. I finally ended up looking up the couple on Wikipedia just to see how their lives went and that is enough for me. The detail just finally detracted from the story. I did learn a new phrase though that I must use with my research: "noncausal synchron...more
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This was a good nonfiction about the rich couple of the Murphy's, which F. Scott Fitzgerald used as some character/partail characters in Tender is the NIght. It was written by a daughter of a friend, I think with some bias to it. But is was interesting to see how they grew into the item on the Riveria, and how it came to an end as they grew old in New York state. Everyone does face the end of youth, and the rich have their problems to handle. I enjoyed insight into how they created their own wor...more
I loved this book! Amanda Vaill does a beautiful job of telling us about Gerald and Sara. Truly a fascinating couple. It's really a story of marriage, family and friendship. However, the settings and cast of characters is extraordinary. I read everything else I could find about them after this book. I fell in love with them and my heart broke for them, as well.
Gerald and Sara Murphy new everyone in 1920's Paris. They had friendships so diverse and so interesting I'm surprised they weren't mentioned in Midnight in Paris. They had a life that had tragedy in it but they had such full and interesting it makes one a little envious. I highly recommend this to anyone who finds 1920's Paris fascinating.
Dec 15, 2008
Lisa
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
people interested in lit and art between the wars
This is one of the best biographies I have read. Besides being well researched, it is elegantly and engagingly written. Heartbreaking at times, and at others enlightening. An example of its enlightening quality, who would have thought that Ernest Hemingway would have been such a devoted friend to Sara and Gerald Murphy's dying child.
I'm not much of a biography reader (Geoff thinks this might be the first time I made it all the way through before abandoning) but I did enjoy reading more about this famous and amazing generation of authors, artists and patrons. Their lives, choices and friendships were truly amazing and I ate it all up. Next back to the classics...
This was the autobiography of a couple and a marriage. The Murphys were a wealthy jazz age pair who always seemed to be ahead of their time, whether they were choosing minimalist design for their home(s) or befriending Hemingway. It brought the era to life and showed that the rich aren't immune to the wear and tear of time.
I believe I first heard of Gerald and Sara Murphy when, as a teenager, I read Zelda. They were friends with every cool writer and artist in the 1920s, and come up often in that context. This is a fascinating, well-done bio about rich, connected, cool, nice people in an age gone by, which takes a tragic turn and made me cry.
I loved this book enough to go have lunch with the author (who is a delight). This is a wonderful view into the lives of the expat writers during the 1920s. If you are a fan of Fitzgerald or Hemingway, this book will give you some unusual insight into their friendship, inspiration, and writing.
Excellent and very thorough biography of the golden couple, Gerald and Sara Murphy, whose lifestyle encompassed and influenced the artistic and literary world of the 1920's and 1930's, particularly Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, and most memorably, in France. They led astonishing lives.
This book sparked a "Lost Generation" reading jag. Started with Fitzgerald, led to Dos Passos, Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. Wonderful story about an artistic couple with the wealth to explore their eccentricities. I thought it was slated to become a movie, but haven't seen any progress.
Apr 21, 2013
Bayneeta
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
biography,
nonfiction
They knew everyone worth knowing in that expat community of 1920s France. Gerald painted; Picasso, Hemingway and Fitzgerald all loved Sara; they threw wonderful parties, were warm and generous friends, and suffered great personal tragedies. A puzzle piece not to be missed if you're at all fascinated by those times, places and authors.
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AMANDA VAILL is the author of Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins, for which she received a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the bestselling Everybody Was So Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy – A Lost Generation Love Story, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award in biography. She is also co-author of Seaman Schepps: A Century of New York Jewelry Design, an illustrated study of th...more
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updated Apr 18, 2013 08:58am