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All We Know: Three Lives

3.48 of 5 stars 3.48 · rating details · 91 ratings · 34 reviews

A revelatory biography of three glamorous, complex, modern women

Esther Murphy was a brilliant New York intellectual who dazzled friends and strangers with an unstoppable flow of conversation. But she never finished the books she was contracted to write—a painful failure and yet a kind of achievement.

The quintessential fan, Mercedes de Acosta had intimate friendships with t...more

Hardcover, 448 pages

Published July 17th 2012 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (first published July 3rd 2012)

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Mar 19, 2013 Suzanne Stroh rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: design, lesbian-literary-history, informs-tabou

[This review appeared first as a blog post on my website. That explains its length...]

Time to make room for a new biography in the bookcase. But where do I shelve it?

After Here Lies the Heart by Mercedes de Acosta, between Diana McLellan’s The Girls and Loving Garbo by Hugo Vickers? In what proximity to Diana Souhami’s sparer Greta and Cecil or Maria Riva’s spare-no-details book about her mother, Marlene Dietrich? Or should it go on the Paris-in-the-Twenties shelf beside A Moveable Feast, Henry...more

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Feb 15, 2013 Joyce rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book is sub-titled "Three Lives" and is a sort of biography of three women whose lives escape biography because they lived quite privately. Of necessity, as all three were lesbians, at a time when such a choice could be personally and professionally ruinous.

Of the three, Madge Garland was the most interesting to me due to my interests in both fashion and journalism. Ms Garland was one of the first fashion editors of British Vogue, or Brogue as it was affectionately termed. She lost that job...more

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Oct 27, 2012 Michele Weiner rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was a semi-interesting recounting of the lives and social milieux of three lesbian women who were impactful in some way during the '20's and '30's and beyond. Esther Murphy was a daughter of privilege. Her father was the owner of the Mark Cross company, maker of leather accessories. Her brother, Gerald, and his wife Sarah were close to the young Ernest Hemingway. Esther was an intellectual, a brilliant child and woman from whom much was expected. Her curiosity was enormous, and so was her c...more This was a semi-interesting recounting of the lives and social milieux of three lesbian women who were impactful in some way during the '20's and '30's and beyond. Esther Murphy was a daughter of privilege. Her father was the owner of the Mark Cross company, maker of leather accessories. Her brother, Gerald, and his wife Sarah were close to the young Ernest Hemingway. Esther was an intellectual, a brilliant child and woman from whom much was expected. Her curiosity was enormous, and so was her capacity for entertaining with long monologues. In fact, most of her energy for writing was depleted by her tendency to spend all her time talking, drinking, and researching. Her life's work was a biography of Madame de Maintenon, royal mistress of one of the Louis's. She worked on the book for more than twenty years, with no result. Esther's life was a series of bad choices and depression. She had a short-lived marriage to a homosexual friend, then a long but unsuccessful marriage to Chester A. Arthur III, grandson of the president of the same name. In between, she had affairs or friendships with many famous or near-famous women who were also intellectuals and writers. Esther was not wise with money, and relied on a trust fund from her mother and dividends from Mark Cross, which had been rescued from near ruin and run for 20 years by her brother, Gerald. She died alone and nearly penniless, having failed to live up to her early promise.

Mercedes D"Acosta's only claim to fame is her association with famous women like Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo. She made a living from being a worshipper, saving every scrap of each relationship and later donating, or selling, her artifacts to an eccentric pair of brothers, collectors of all sorts of odd and worthless stuff, in Philadelphia. Mercedes also ended her life alone and flat broke.

The most sympathetic of the characters was the last, Madge Alma McHarg, who later took the name of her husband of a few years, Ewart Garland. Madge was Australian, and felt that wasn't good enough. She wanted to be British, and upper class at that. She wanted a college education, but never achieved either goal. What she did achieve was a remarkable career in fashion, becoming an icon for her own sense of style, but also working to establish British Vogue and later, a school of fashion where she set the curriculum and taught students who wanted to design clothing. During the war, she found a government job in her field, and the chapters describing wartime life in England were wonderful. After the war, Madge developed standards for ready-to-wear clothing, making standard patterns for the purpose of ensuring that dresses were made using a minimum of scarce fabric. It was because of Madge, who had never shopped in a store (she had her dresses made by the Queen's dressmaker), British women who did shop in stores were finally able to buy well-made clothing that fit.

I could not discern why these three particular women were chosen to illustrate the lesbian lifestyle in the middle of the last century - what made these women more representative than the many others who could have been selected? Occasionally, Cohen would drop in a few paragraphs (especially in the Mercedes D'Acosta chapters) to explain why her subjects were important to lesbian history. I found that Esther and Madge were fascinating, if vastly dissimilar, but I cannot understand what Mercedes's supposed contribution could have been. That was a failure, in my opinion, that reduced the effectiveness of the book.

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Aug 23, 2012 Jenny McPhee rated it 5 of 5 stars

ELUDING MAGNIFICENT MONUMENTS: THE STYLISH LIVES OF ESTHER MURPHY, MERCEDES DE ACOSTA, AND MADGE GARLAND

In trying to come to terms with what she perceived as her friend Esther Murphy’s colossal failure of a life, the novelist Dawn Powell wrote to Esther’s brother Gerald, “Some people don’t want to be the action -- they really want to be spectator.” In All We Know: Three Lives, Lisa Cohen’s mind-stretching book about three early 20th-century women who dwelled on the margins of celebrity, Powell’s...more ELUDING MAGNIFICENT MONUMENTS: THE STYLISH LIVES OF ESTHER MURPHY, MERCEDES DE ACOSTA, AND MADGE GARLAND

In trying to come to terms with what she perceived as her friend Esther Murphy’s colossal failure of a life, the novelist Dawn Powell wrote to Esther’s brother Gerald, “Some people don’t want to be the action -- they really want to be spectator.” In All We Know: Three Lives, Lisa Cohen’s mind-stretching book about three early 20th-century women who dwelled on the margins of celebrity, Powell’s division becomes specious. All three women -- historian and conversationalist Esther Murphy; writer, feminist, and consummate fan to the stars Mercedes de Acosta; and fashion journalist Madge Garland -- were both actors and spectators, contributing to and observing the world they inhabited with equal fervor. “Each one constantly memorialized herself and colluded in her own invisibility,” Cohen writes. Though she wanted to make these women’s lives visible again, Cohen notes that “none of them thought herself in need of rescue.”

These three almost famous women knew each other, were an integral part of the cultural elite, and belonged to a tantalizingly open yet constrained gay and lesbian subculture; their profiles merge into a sumptuous portrait of the era. The brilliance of Cohen’s study, however, lies in her meditations on what we mean by failure, irrationality, and triviality when considering a life -- especially the lives of women. She questions the genre of biography itself, suggesting that, like the reputation of any “great woman,” the form is inherently insecure and lies precariously “at the intersection of history and literature, of fact and imagination.”

In answer to any question, Esther Murphy would notoriously begin “All we know is...” then launch into a panoptic account complete with nuanced digressions. Her father, Patrick Murphy, was a renowned public speaker and wealthy owner of a luxury leather goods store in Manhattan. Proud of his daughter, whose verbal genius was notable from a young age, he favored her over her brothers. Being eclipsed by a sibling was unfathomable in her lifetime, yet, Cohen writes, “if she is remembered at all today, it is as Gerald Murphy’s eccentric, pathetic sister, a marvel who became a spectacular disappointment.”

When Esther, an avid reader, was unable to attend Bryn Mawr due to her mother’s health, Patrick arranged for her to follow the Harvard curriculum at home. It was assumed by her family and friends, and publishers who gave her advances for biographies and histories, that she would transfer her rhetorical precocity onto paper. She did publish essays and books, was vigorously on the lecture circuit, and had a regular stint as a panelist along with Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Mead, and Fanny Hurst on the ABC radio program Listen -- The Women! But the magnum opuses -- projected biographies of Lady Blessington, Madame de Pompadour, and Madame de Maintenon -- never materialized.

Six feet tall and awkward, she drank and smoked heavily, and was never shy about her eloquence. She held forth at any opportunity, of which she had many, both at the numerous parties she attended -- three per evening, never home before dawn -- and at official engagements. With psychological astuteness, Cohen describes how Esther “became a figure whose inability to complete her planned long works both pained her writer friends and reassured them about their own productivity and success.” Esther’s inner circle included Edmund Wilson, Dorothy Parker, Dawn Powell, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and many more literary luminaries -- and by the mid-1920s she was very much part of “sapphic New York and Paris.” When in Paris, she spent much of her time with Janet Flanner and Solita Solana, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Oscar’s niece Dorothy Wilde, and poet Natalie Barney, Esther’s passionate obsession. Sybille Bedford, a young European refugee and aspiring writer when they met in 1945, became the love of Esther’s life. Their affair lasted only a few years but they remained lifelong friends.

So what exactly does it mean to be a failure? A lack of acclaim, fame, sales, no magnificent monument, no Wikipedia page?

Read the rest of my August Bookslut column here: http://www.bookslut.com/the_bombshell...(less)

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Oct 08, 2012 Maureen M rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviews

I wrote this review for the paper:
They were once well-known, or even famous. Today Esther Murphy, Mercedes de Acosta, Madge McHarg are… who? These women cut a swath through literary, style and sexual circles in the 1920s and ’30s before sinking into obscurity. Author Lisa Cohen resurrects them in a trio of telling and fairly compelling mini-biographies. Murphy was a confidante of F. Scott Fitzgerald and a writer in her own right. But the biography she talked about endlessly never got written. De...more

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Dec 03, 2012 Sharon Pelletier rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book has been so raved about in my bookish circles, and rightly so - it is intriguing and thoughtful, preserving three women hitherto slightly hidden from history without shrinking away from their less appealing qualities. The author is fascinated by the "boths" and "betweens" of these women, the paradoxes that surround each of them (and by extension, anyone who moves in history or who attempts to have an influence on their era and those to come), and communicates the questions and answers...more This book has been so raved about in my bookish circles, and rightly so - it is intriguing and thoughtful, preserving three women hitherto slightly hidden from history without shrinking away from their less appealing qualities. The author is fascinated by the "boths" and "betweens" of these women, the paradoxes that surround each of them (and by extension, anyone who moves in history or who attempts to have an influence on their era and those to come), and communicates the questions and answers of her fascination to the reader. She is a strong writer, if slightly academic.

A few complaints - I felt that the middle portion, about Mercedes de Acosta, didn't quite "go" with the book. It is significantly shorter than the other two, and her similarities to them end at being a vaguely cultural figure and closet lesbian in roughly the same time frame. I felt her story could have been told in pieces through the other two and does not earn out its own section.

In the final section, focusing on the life of Madge Garland - which I found the strongest, both in pure interest and in proving the significance of the subject on her time - the author doesn't offer explanation of Madge's first firing from Vogue, merely stating that Nast decided to, rather than analyzing the reasons, as she does with later rehirings and firings. I also felt that the discussion of Madge as an author came too late and too cursory.

And finally, in the opening section, on Esther Murphy, I would have liked a bit more explanation of how/why Murphy truly mattered to history. The discussions of the idea of failure in American myth and reputation was very interesting, especially as it pertains to writers and Esther as a failed writer. And I also enjoyed the depiction of her fascination with history and how she interacted with its personages and literary characters as her friends, and vice versa. But the section lacked the larger context of the ways in which Esther DID matter to history, if any, other than being friends with and talking to notable cultural figures. This context was generously provided in Madge's section but lacking from Esther's.

Still, this was an enjoyable and substantive read, recommended for those interested in feminism, in the history of gay rights and gay culture, or in the cultural life of English-speaking countries between the wars. (less)

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Oct 08, 2012 Amanda Mecke rated it 4 of 5 stars

When I came out in the 1970s, it was not easy to find biographies and history our early 20th Century "foremothers." Biographies and memoirs of Romaine Brooks, Gertrude Stein, Marlene Dietrich, Janet Flanner, and Sylvia Beach began to fill in background for these first women able to live independently and love other women, but until then most of what was written came from the snide comments of Fitzgerald or Hemingway about Paris before WW II.

Lisa Cohen's biography gives us more background about t...more

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Oct 31, 2012 Carl Rollyson rated it 5 of 5 stars

I'm listing this book as one of the five best biographies of 2012. Quite aside from the fascinating narrative about three women I was barely aware of, I found the treatment of biography, and Esther Murphy's penetrating study of the genre, fascinating. Of course I am a practicing biographer, so the book holds a special interest. One of the women, Madge Garland, I encountered when researching my biography of Rebecca West, but to see Garland become a major character was thrilling. This book first c...more

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Mar 05, 2013 Amanda rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a gorgeously-written, witty, perceptive, and elegant book that in the end adds up to less than the sum of its highly-wrought parts. Apart from their sexual preference (all were lesbians), their age (all are roughly contemporaneous), their overlapping roster of friends, and the fact that none seemed to have achieved what Lisa Cohen believes was her full potential, what unites these women? Their stories are told independently, in three stand-alone parts, and seemed to cry out for some kind...more

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Dec 17, 2012 First Second Books added it

Shelves: gina

I read this book right after reading Joanna Russ’s _How to Supress Women’s Writing_, which turned out to be an interesting pairing choice – combining a book about how women are generally marginalized and minimalized with a book about some actual women who were marginalized and minimalized at the beginning of the 20th century.

It was fascinating to read about these lives and think about what they could have become if they had had some access to education and societal encouragement. I’m so glad I...more

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Sep 01, 2012 Cathy rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a very well written group biography about three women born in the late 19th century who influenced the arts in the first half of the 20th century. All three were lesbians who moved in the same social circles in New York, London, and Paris. Esther Murphy was the daughter of "Mark Cross" owner Patrick Murphy, Meredes deAcosta was from a wealthy, stylish family in New York, and Madge Galand an Austrailian who was an early editor of British Vogue. They lived during a time when being gay was...more

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Mar 04, 2013 AJ rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: biographical, non-fiction, educational

The lush novels of the 20's - full of fitzgerald and hemingway prose and filled with romantic stories of prohibition era parties and salon's, paris and spain adventures, french mediterrian countryside vacations, and rich and in depth social classes are uncovered by the factual stores of 3 women, all somehow entrenched in it.

The first narrative about Ester, was my favorite. Mercedes' chapter seemed to be an afterthought smacked in the middle of of the other two. But more importantly this is a boo...more

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Aug 15, 2012 Carolann rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed-her-literary-salon

‘All We Know’ is a book about three women who all lived and loved in the 1920s/30s. All three women crossed paths – running across each other at cocktail parties, or at Parisian salons, or through the sharing of a lover as all three explored both male and female sexual relationships. But mainly, all three women have one characteristic in common – or at least according to author Lisa Cohen – that each lady in question did not live up to their ‘potential’.

‘It is a cliche of American life that we l...more

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Jan 20, 2013 Annie Garvey rated it 3 of 5 stars

I always wanted to know more about Esther Murphy, Gerald's sister. Although Cohen doesn't say it, I wonder if Esther was autistic. I new a bit about Mercedes Acosta and nothing about Madge Garland. Because all three were lesbians who lived in the 20s and 30s, they knew each other. I hope Cohen writes more about Sybille Bedford Esther's love to whom the book was dedicated.

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Nov 11, 2012 Claire McMillan rated it 5 of 5 stars

I'm not a biography nut, but I couldn't stop reading this. All these hazy thoughts that have been knocking around my brain about feminism and fashion and style and women and life and society were distilled by the author and passed through the structure of these three women's lives. I adored this book. I'm recommending it to people like a zealot.

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Jan 25, 2013 vani rated it 5 of 5 stars

"Swoons of adulation, feats of seduction, acts of conservation---these were the gestures, the texture, of Mercedes de Acosta's life."

There are three f's that preoccupy the author: failure, fandom, and fashion, though really feminism is a fourth, and fantasy (or fascination?) a fifth. I couldn't decide which of the three women intrigued me the most--each casts a glow on the other two.

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Dec 24, 2012 Lynn Kearney rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a terrific biography of three extraordinary lesbians. Although pretty much unknown today, in their time they were significant, partly because of their famous connections.

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Sep 05, 2012 Lola425 rated it 4 of 5 stars

Very interesting biography. At every page I was jotting notes to go back and look at things later. But then again I am a sucker for twenties era lesbians.

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Dec 31, 2012 jess marked it as to-read

they had me at Mercedes de Acosta.

http://www.npr.org/2012/12/30/1677083...

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Jan 19, 2013 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars

What an ambitious and well structured book. I don't recall reading a biography of three people who weren't directly related but she makes an excellent case for showing three semi-forgotten lives to reveal about the times. There is a lot of research and thought in this book, many interesting ideas and historical alleys to wander down. If it does bog down in passages, it is not dull. I enjoyed reading this as a long discussion spanning many ideas.

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Mar 23, 2013 Lisa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Dense and cerebral, often reading like a lot of topics in search of a Master’s thesis—which turns out, in fact, to be a good quality. My full review is over at Like Fire.

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Jan 15, 2013 Kimberly Davis rated it 4 of 5 stars

Loved it. Biographies of three women, who were a part of history, but usually just footnotes.

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Mar 27, 2013 Katharine Holden rated it 1 of 5 stars

Author pushes hard for the significance of these women's lives. The pushing shows.

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Mar 08, 2013 Tara rated it 4 of 5 stars

All We Know: Collective biography of three influential women from the past century that you might never have heard of (I’ve read tons of stuff about Gerald Murphy but who knew he had a sister?) and who were considered “failures,” despite their contributions to 20th-century culture: Esther Murphy, Mercedes de Acosta, and Madge Garland. Rather fascinating.

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Oct 12, 2012 Marina and Joshua rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: marina

Very good. "Notes on Discretion" near the end of the book feels like the thesis statement, a dissection of the power and politic involved in manners and correctness.

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Nov 14, 2012 Laura rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: lesbrary, favorites

I reviewed this here: http://lesbrary.com/2012/10/05/2922.

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Sep 10, 2012 Maggy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: lgbt, nonfiction

A work of excellent scholarship, but too long in some sections and too short in others.

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Nov 27, 2012 Elizabeth marked it as to-read

Shelves: non-fiction

NYT: 100 notable book 2012

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Apr 01, 2013 Mills College Library added it

Shelves: march-2013, weekly-03-29-2013

920.72 C6785 2012

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Apr 03, 2013 Missy rated it 2 of 5 stars

Exhaustive in scope at many points and frequently, just exhausting.

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