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Rating: 
Summary: Paris in the 20's revisited
Review: Amanda Vaill has researched this book with admirable skill and diligence. She has given the reader more than adequate detail of the life of the privileged in Paris after WW I. By privileged I mean those with intellectual, artistic or personality advantages that allowed them to make a significant contribution to the life of that great society at the time. In the rich parade of her characters are Hemingway,Picasso and Scott Fitzgerald, warts and all. The main protagonists, Gerald and Sara Murphy are distinguished members of this illustrious group not so much for their academic achievements, but for their uncompromising and ingenuous humanism. Many books have been written about this exciting period of freedom and almost explosive creativity. So why read another, and why read this one? What is important about this book is not a chronicle of events. It is the wonderful revelation of the power of friendship and the passion of relationships within a family. Read this to understand yourself. Read this to feel alongside another human-being the deepest emotions of despair and intoxicating elation. Every human weakness is exposed without judgement. Amanda Vaill's triumph, in my opinion, is that theatre, ballet, literature and painting are laid bare for the reader. The creator and the creation are revealed for viewing in a very fresh way. You, the reader, will judge. But inevitably, you will not escape the excitement and vitality of the amazing life of expatriot Americans in Paris in the 20's trying to excape the strait jacket of their homeland. Not many books make me question my own values. This one did.Minor criticism: inaccurate Latin quotes.
Rating: 
Summary: some facts are not correct.
Review: Few books deserve to be 'raved' about but mark this one as a definite 5 stars. Brilliantly researched and detailed, the author made these people 'real' to me, I felt I knew them. The Murphys, so very different yet so very much alike were 'The hostesses with the mostest' to all the upcoming glitterati of the 20's furnishing both emotional and monetary support at crucial times to Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Cole Porter (and others) with a grace and charm that is as impressive now as it was then. It would have been so easy for Vaill just to cover that but she gives the lives behind the facade, the odd and distant relationships with both sets of parents and family, the heartbreak and sorrow of loss of their two sons that seemed to end all the lightness in theie lives. They and the world they had created were never the same after, as both they and their friends even at the time recognized. Its sometimes so easy to forget that the 20's were a brief flickering of a frantic time between a war and a depression. The Murphys lived before and after but somehow they both defined and were defined by that period. This book lets you know them for all they were.
Rating: 
Summary: This was a wonderful book!
Review: I absoultely loved this book. I was so enthralled by the history and atmosphere that surrounded the Murphy's and this was a great example of a decadent couple in the 1920's. It took me 8 months to finish this book due to time constraints and by the time I finished, I felt like I knew the Murphys and was someone looking on as they lived their lives. It's a great thing to know Gerald and Sara were real people and lived real lifes and had real feelings and thoughts. I was amazed at how many people they knew and to the callibre of their characters, tragedies and happiness in their lives. I'd love to read more about the world of the 20's and this was a great, fabulous book to start with. As much as I love historical fiction, I loved this and Amanda Vaill did a wonderful job telling the story of the Murphys that more people should know.
Rating:
Summary: some facts are not correct.
Review: i'll admit i havent even read the book. perhaps i will in the future, but a few incorrect "facts" fly out while just gazing over the material available online. the most glaring is that "Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney was Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney's Aunt." get with it she was his mother, obvious she named her son after her father. anyone who has read either's biography would know that. and for other sources John Hay Whitney "JOCK" was his cousin not his brother.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating account of Lost Generation love story
Review: If anyone could be said to have lived a charmed life, it would be Gerald and Sara Murphy. They were wealthy, artistic and talented, with three beautiful, loving children and a circle of friends who became famous and accomplished in their own right. They gave wonderful parties that are still remembered a half-century later, were generous to those in need, and best of all, Gerald and Sara loved each other deeply, with an affection that grew as they lived their lives to the inevitable, bitter end. Anyone who has read into the lives of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Picasso and the other expatirot residents of Paris in the 1920s will recognize Gerald and Sara, perhaps unfavorably as hanger-ons who supplied the money the others lived on. That unfair assessment is turned on its head in Amanda Vaill's dual biography of the couple. The Murphys were more than a bank account who gave parties; celebrity bottom feeders more interested in status than in accomplishments. They were something of an oddity. Both were from wealthy families, yet both wanted more than the family life they craved. Gerald had an eye for art, music and decorating; it was amazing to learn he was first to boost many artists who later became famous; "Grandchildren," he said as he showed them a copy of "Meet the Beatles." "Pay attention. These young men are going to be very, very important." From their village in the Antibes, which was a backwater when they discovered it, they befriended people like Hemingway and Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, Archibald Macleish, Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett as well, while Gerald became famous in his own right for his finely detailed studies of mechanical devices: a watch, a machine, of a boat deck and smokestacks. But if there's anything experience teaches us, it's that no one really leads a charmed life. It's all filled with day-to-day worries, irritations, tragedies and, with luck, some glory. But Gerald and Sara came close -- the 20s were their time -- and it's a fine thing to finish a biography of someone and find that you like them even more than before.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating account of Lost Generation love story
Review: If anyone could be said to have lived a charmed life, it would be Gerald and Sara Murphy. They were wealthy, artistic and talented, with three beautiful, loving children and a circle of friends who became famous and accomplished in their own right. They gave wonderful parties that are still remembered a half-century later, were generous to those in need, and best of all, Gerald and Sara loved each other deeply, with an affection that grew as they lived their lives to the inevitable, bitter end. Anyone who has read into the lives of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Picasso and the other expatirot residents of Paris in the 1920s will recognize Gerald and Sara, perhaps unfavorably as hanger-ons who supplied the money the others lived on. That unfair assessment is turned on its head in Amanda Vaill's dual biography of the couple. The Murphys were more than a bank account who gave parties; celebrity bottom feeders more interested in status than in accomplishments. They were something of an oddity. Both were from wealthy families, yet both wanted more than the family life they craved. Gerald had an eye for art, music and decorating; it was amazing to learn he was first to boost many artists who later became famous; "Grandchildren," he said as he showed them a copy of "Meet the Beatles." "Pay attention. These young men are going to be very, very important." From their village in the Antibes, which was a backwater when they discovered it, they befriended people like Hemingway and Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, Archibald Macleish, Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett as well, while Gerald became famous in his own right for his finely detailed studies of mechanical devices: a watch, a machine, of a boat deck and smokestacks. But if there's anything experience teaches us, it's that no one really leads a charmed life. It's all filled with day-to-day worries, irritations, tragedies and, with luck, some glory. But Gerald and Sara came close -- the 20s were their time -- and it's a fine thing to finish a biography of someone and find that you like them even more than before.
Rating:
Summary: Eye- and mind-opening, and very moving
Review: If you thought you knew about the Murphys, thought you knew about American ex pats in the 20s ... think again. The amount of new material here is remarkable, and for the first time one gets the sense that the Murphys' role in cultural history was far more than that of passing hors d'oeuvres and mixing drinks. Gerald and Sara were major figures in the European avant garde--contributors in their own right--before Fitzgerald, Hemingway, etc, got there, for example. This is the also first time Gerald's painting has been given its due. Above all, though, this book reveals two people with an astonishing gift for friendship--far from self-absorbed, a term better applied to the American writers who used them, they were instead open, generous--whose lives turned from surface glamor to intense, and deeply moving, private agony, as tragedy befell their children. The glamorous surface we knew about: the far more beautiful full story is here.
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Summary: Riveting Biography of the Patron Saints of 20th Century Art
Review: This is one of the best biographical books I have ever read. It's got romance, adventure, excitement, passion- and its all real. The Murphy's were friends with the creme of ex-patriot society. The Fitzgeralds, Hemingways, Picasso, you name them... they knew them. I have recommended this book to all my friends and they in turn have told their friends. It's THAT good. Put it this way, if you enjoy Hemingway or Fitzgerald- you will get new insights into them. If you are a fan of chucking it all and starting a new life- ditto. If you want to escape, want to imagine a different life. Get this book. It's well written, extremely well researched, and evident that the author felt passionately about her subjects.
Rating:
Summary: Enchantiing
Review: What a beautiful, bittersweet work! It will leave you informed, inspired, exalted -- and annoyed that it doesn't go on for another 400 pp. Gerald and Sara Murphy knew and supported and inspired Hemingway, Dos Passos, Archibald MacLeish, Dorothy Parker, Edmund Wilson, Benchley, Fitzgerald, Philip Barry, the glitterati of five decades -- and yet, in many ways, the Murphys outglittered them all, at least if success as human beings can be measured in terms of fundamental decency and intelligence and kindness combined with impeccable grace and taste. The Murphys had everything, gave most of it away, their treasure and their souls, and enriched the literature of an era. "Everybody Was So Young" will wring you out and leave you in grateful tears.
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