Living Well is the Best Revenge
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Book Overview
In this enchanting memoir, New Yorker writer Calvin Tomkins re-creates the privileged world of Gerald and Sara Murphy, two American originals who found themselves at the center of a charmed circle of artists and expatriate writers in France in the 1920s. Their home in Antibes, Villa America, served as a gathering place for Picasso and Leger as well as Hemingway and Fitzgerald, who used the glamorous couple as models for Dick and Nicole Diver in Tender Is the Night. A bestseller when it first appeared in 1971, Living Well Is the Best Revenge features sixty-nine intimate photographs collected from the Murphys' family album, along with reproductions of several of Gerald Murphy's remarkable paintings--canvases that predate Pop Art by forty years. "Living Well Is the Best Revenge is a superb little study, alive with an elegance very much the Murphys'," said Nancy Mitford. Critic Russell Lynes found the book to be "at once a sharp and charming evocation of an era and a cast, mostly delightful, surely famous, and usually talented, written with an elegant balance between tongue in cheek and sympathy." This Modern Library edition includes Calvin Tomkins's new Introduction and a rewritten last chapter."
Format:Hardcover
Language:English
ISBN:0670435910
ISBN13:9780670435913
Release Date:June 1971
Publisher:Viking Press
Length:148 Pages
Weight:0.89 lbs.
Customer Reviews
5 ratings
Lovely little book
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 16 years ago
Too bad the score for this book is skewed down by a couple of idiots. The Murphys were much more than "gracious hosts". They were catalysts. They were the Stein and Toklas of the Riviera, and probably lots more fun. And Gerald Murphy's paintings were as fine an achievement as Stein's scribblings. His works would fetch a fortune on the market, if they were ever available. Tomkins writes a moving and, in the end, melancholy biography. The title is apt. The tragedy in the Murphy's life is almost unbearable to read about. Interesting how their life parallels that of their friend Cole Porter -- brilliant fortune met with sudden misfortune. This book is about the arc of tragedy and one couple's effort to live through it. Anyone whose life has been touched by misfortune should read it.
Good Things Come in Small Packages
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 18 years ago
As an avid and diehard Fitzgerald fan, I seek out any material that covers him, his circle, or the "Lost Generation" in general. Though the book occupies less than two hundred pages, Tomkins does a fine job of making it feel warm and intimate. What's more, you get the privilege of learning about the Fitzgeralds, Hemingway, Cole Porter, Picasso and others. Gerald and Sara Murphy were a class act and lived life for no one but themselves. They seemed wonderfully down to earth and sympathetic to the situations of their friends and family. It seems they did indeed "write the book" on how to live right--The Fitzgeralds were said to have lived poorly on massive amounts of money while Gerald and Sara Murphy lived grandly on far less income; with them, it was not about appearances and pleasing society, but about family and togetherness. This wonderful little biography spans the 1910's to the 1960's in a relatively short breath and perhaps my only complaint is that there is not more. I certainly turned the last page wanting for more. If you are interested at all in "The Lost Generation" or the modernist movement, you will adore this book. Theirs was an evanescent time, one worth reading about and dreaming about.
Good Things Come in Small Packages
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 18 years ago
As an avid and diehard Fitzgerald fan, I seek out any material that covers him, his circle, or the "Lost Generation" in general. Though the book occupies less than two hundred pages, Tomkins does a fine job of making it feel warm and intimate. What's more, you get the privilege of learning about the Fitzgeralds, Hemingway, Cole Porter, Picasso and others. Gerald and Sara Murphy were a class act and lived life for no one but themselves. They seemed wonderfully down to earth and sympathetic to the situations of their friends and family. It seems they did indeed "write the book" on how to live right--The Fitzgeralds were said to have lived poorly on massive amounts of money while Gerald and Sara Murphy lived grandly on far less income; with them, it was not about appearances and pleasing society, but about family and togetherness. This wonderful little biography spans the 1910s to the 1960s in a relatively short breath and perhaps my only complaint is that there is not more. I certainly turned the last page wanting for more. If you are interested at all in "The Lost Generation" or the modernist movement, you will adore this book. Theirs was an evanescent time, one worth reading about and dreaming about.
Nothing succeeds like success...
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 23 years ago
This book truly proves that living well is really the best revenge.
A Fabulous Book
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 25 years ago
This is one of the most memorable books I've ever read, perfectly capturing the period and perils of that lost generation. Not only is the subject fascinating, but Calvin Tompkins' writing is beautiful and lyrical.
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