The six women featured in Judith Mackrell’s Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation  are not the most famous women of the Jazz Age. But the stories of Josephine Baker, Tallulah Bankhead, Diana Cooper, Nancy Cunard, Zelda Fitzgerald, and Tamara de Lempicka are wonderful illustrations of the challenge in forming identity and a life with guts and swagger (as one blurb enthuses) during the 1920s.

Before I picked up the book, Zelda Fitzgerald was the only name I knew immediately, although I recognized both Josephine Baker and Diana Cooper soon after I started reading their stories (some of Cooper’s family secrets are chronicled in The Secret Rooms by Catherine Bailey). But they are women across a range of economic and social classes who found themselves inspiring and inspired by the wild ethos of the flapper during the 1920s.

In some ways, each of these women embodied the 1920s version of the Cool Girl that Gillian Flynn wrote about so craftily in Gone Girl. They battled hard to both create the image of the flapper, as well as live in the reality of being a woman in the 1920s and the consequences of being considered a flapper. The theme of image versus reality was so cool to follow through their different stories.

Mackrell made an interesting choice in the way she decided to arrange this book. Each woman is covered in two chapters. Each first chapter covers their childhoods, up until a pivotal moment in the 1920s when each of these women had to make a choice about the life they wanted to live. After introducing all six of these women, Mackrell moves into a second chapter on each that shows the outcome of those choices, and how those choices affected what they decided to do after the age of the flapper was truly over.

At first I struggled a little bit with this structure – it felt like I would just settle into a great biography, only to be shuttled out of it into another woman’s story. But it started to make more sense in the second half as Mackrell made intriguing connections between each woman and how their lives after the Jazz Age veered off in different directions. Some, like Diana Cooper, settled into a contented middle age, while others, like Nancy Cunard, spent the rest of their lives butting up against the expectations the world set up for them.

I read this book alongside Megan Mayhew Bergman’s recent short story collection, Almost Famous Women, which was so interesting. I have a post on that experience going up at Book Riot soon, that I’ll be sure to cross post here. But basically, there are so many connections, literal and symbolic, between the women Bergman fictionalizes and the women featured in this book. All of them pushed against conventions, and all of them had to face the consequences of those choices. But neither author makes the women they wrote about into cautionary tales – they’re truly stories that celebrate women who go against the grain.

The other part of this book that really struck me is how much the underlying pressure and expectations for women have not changed all that much – widespread panic about the morality of young women, for example, is still alive and well. An argument that Mackrell makes near the end of the book resonated with some of the issues I think are still common today:

In this decade of rapid social change, the borderline between freedom and selfishness, ego and egoism, was hotly contended ethical ground. … For male artists and writers, the supremacy of the individual over society was one of the clarion themes of the Twenties. … Most women, however, were experiencing the dichotomy between individual liberty and society in far more practical, problematic and domestic ways. In theory they were living in an era of emancipation … yet women were presented with few narratives of what to do with those choices.

As I think this rambling review suggests, Flappers was a wonderful read, full of engaging stories that also have surprising relevance to the world we live in today.

I was inspired to pick up Flappers this month because of Jazz Age January, a month-long event celebrating books related to the 1920s (novels by Jazz Age authors, nonfiction, or even contemporary fiction set in that era). Thanks to Leah at Books Speak Volumes for hosting this fun event!

Briefly | I spent almost all of this week in the middle of a gross winter cold, but didn’t admit that I needed rest and quiet until I basically fell apart on Thursday evening. After a couple of good nights of sleep (thanks, cold medicine) I’m finally on the upswing, but it’s been a rough week.

Time and Place | About 8:45 a.m. on my couch, snuggled up with a cat and a blanket

Reading | Because of the cold, I had a quieter reading week. I finally finished up Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation by Judith Mackrell (so great!). Then yesterday afternoon I sat down and flew through The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi Durrow (really beautiful and interesting) and finished up Gretchen Rubin’s upcoming book on habits, Better Than Before (March 17 from Crown — I read it as a egalley). I was not impressed with this particular book, but I’m still sorting out exactly why — Kelly Jensen’s review on Goodreads gets at some of my issues.

I just started reading The Lonely War by Nazila Fathi, a memoir/reported look at the challenges of modern Iran. I’m only about 50 pages in but I have high hopes — her introduction provided the most succinct and clear summary of the Iranian Revolution and the fall out that I’ve ever read (and I’ve read a bunch of books on Iran).

Watching | The boyfriend and I started watching Larry Wilmore’s new show The Nightly Show this week and we both really like it! I think the format (a desk segment, followed by a panel discussion) is going to work, and I’m glad that he’s been taking on big topics right away.

Blogging | Because of my sick brain, I only got up one review this week, a look at The Romanov Sisters by Helen Rappaport (spoiler, I really liked it). I’m super behind on comments, but the plan is get caught up this morning.

Reminiscing | This Vox piece on Mathnet took me straight back to my childhood. I remember watching Square One with my mom in the first house our family lived in.

Loving | Everyone at work is in a cleaning and organizing mood, which inspired me to get rid of a bunch of old notebooks I’d been hiding in a riling cabinet — goodbye city, school and county board notes from early 2012…

Avoiding | I need to go to the grocery store today… but I don’t want to leave my house. I’m hoping we can scavenge until tomorrow.

Anticipating | This week is the Minnesota Newspaper Association annual conference, which is usually a fun couple of days away from work. Since it’s in the Twin Cities, I usually get to couple going to the convention with a trip home to see my family before I hunker down for the month of February.

Happy Sunday, everyone! What are you reading today?

In 1895, Tsar Nicholas Romanov II and his wife, Tsarita Alexandra, welcomed their first child into the world. Although the Tsar and Tsarita were thrilled with their daughter, Olga, much of the Russian populace was concerned because, of course, the dynasty needed a son. When the Tsarita gave birth to three more daughters — Tatiana in 1897, Maria in 1899 and Anastasia in 1901 — public gossip about her standing as Empress began to swirl.

In private, though, the Tsar and Tsarita were dedicated and loyal to their family, shutting their girls away from much of Russian life to create a private, loving sphere for them to grow up in. The eventual birth of a Russian heir, Tsarevich Alexi Nikolaevich, in 1904 shifted the sister’s out of the public sphere even more. In The Romanov Sisters, historian Helen Rappaport focuses in on the domestic life of the Romanov family to capture the joys and challenges of these young women during the final years of Imperial Russia.

I think what struck me most about this book, an impulse grab from my local library, is that The Romanov Sisters is a very personal book. Rappaport spends most of her time focusing on the Romanov family at home — Alexandra’s parenting style, Nicholas’ love of the outdoors, and the passions and personalities of the Romanov daughters. Although the girls were often separated into pairs — Olga and Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia — they each had distinct personalities and contributions to the family and, had they lived, I imagine Russian society as a whole.

Focusing on the family at home also provided an opportunity for Rappaport to make some specific arguments about how the domestic life of the Romanov family contributed to the civil unrest in Russia that eventually led to the Russian Revolution (and the family’s execution). In particular, Alexandra’s ill health and the turmoil of Alexi’s illness (hemophilia), forced the family to spend much of their time close to home and behind closed doors, exacerbating the distance between the people and the royal family.

Even something as seemingly innocuous as choosing to work as nurses during the war had unintended consequences for the sisters. Alexandra thought that showing the family in ostentatious dress was distasteful during the war, when so many others were going with out. And she and the girls threw themselves into working at various hospitals in and around their home. But Rappaport notes this may have been a miscalculation — many Russians, especially peasants, still saw the royals as almost divine beings and expected their public image to reflect that.

Since I am a reader who tends to get bogged down in historical politics and timelines (and, relevant to this book, Russian names) this domestic framing for the story worked well for me. I loved the way Rappaport made each of the girls stand out and gave a sense of the potential that was cut short when they were murdered. But if you are a reader looking for a more broad historical narrative, I’m sure there are better options to pick up.

Time and Place | About 8:45 a.m. on my couch

Reading | I’ve been on an awesome little streak of reading books about famous and almost famous women. It started with Helen Rappaport’s The Romanov Sisters, a look at the Romanov family focusing primarily on Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia. That was followed by Megan Mayhew Bergman’s new short story collection, Almost Famous Women. I’m working on a post with thoughts on this one, specifically how fiction offers a chance to learn something about these women that nonfiction would miss. And now I’m in the middle of Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation by Judith Mackrel, which has some interesting connections with the other two books. It’s been a fun little reading binge.

Watching | On a whim, I started watching The Tudors on Netflix. It’s pretty absurd — and as far as I can tell, playing awfully fast and loose with historical facts — but it’s mindless enough for watching while I do other things.

Listening | One of my favorite pop culture critics, Linda Holmes, is joining Brian Lehrer of New York Public Radio for a weekly podcast on the final season of Parks and Recreation. Each week they’re bringing in a guest to talk about some of the political stuff in the show, which is such a fun idea. It’s great if you’re a fan of the show.

Recommending | I really liked this piece from Slate — Why It Matters That Wild Wasn’t Nominated for Best Picture. The comments about domestic fiction and the worth of men’s and women’s stories are really spot on, especially in the broader context of the boring Oscar nominations.

Loving | One of my goals for this year is to either exercise or hit my step goal (thanks, FitBit Charge) every day. This has forced me to take some late-evening winter walks, made possible by the amazing winter coat my mom got me for Christmas.

Blogging | Since I was catching up from my weekend away, it was a quiet week on the blog — just some mini-reviews of Sweetland by Michael Crummey (loved) and Descent by Tim Johnston (disliked).

Playing | We had friends over last night and played King of Tokyo — this might be my favorite board game. It’s relatively easy, but also totally goofy. (Here’s a video of a game on TableTop that explains it pretty well).

Anticipating | I’m excited about the AFC and NFC Championship football games today. My team isn’t playing, but I know lots of Packer fans, so I’ll be quietly rooting for them to upset the Seahawks.

Happy Sunday, everyone! What are you reading today?