Monday, April 3, 2017

Anonymous, New York: Ursula Parrott


You are Here, Manhattan, 1929. Back Cover of Ex-Wife, Dell paperback edition.

My husband left me four years ago. Why--I don't precisely understand, and never did. Nor, I suspect, does he. Now, in these waning days of 1929 when the world may be tumbling about our ears, that other catastrophe and its causes are matters equally inconsequential. ~ Ex-Wife, 1929


In 1929, a novel titled Ex-Wife was published by Jonathan Cape publishers. The book, published anonymously, "caught readers' fancy," and made the bestseller list. Many readers were shocked and astonished at the racy story of a woman who, divorced from her "heel" of a husband, takes up relationships with other men, along with a cocktail or two, and even takes up her own career!

She rooms with an artist friend in the Village, attends parties and "first nights" in the city, she shops, she pays attention to her clothes, perfume, and other details, and she loves to find love in the arms of a handsome male friend--RACY!

Who had written such a truly modern story of a young woman in 1920s Manhattan, navigating men, work, and the impact of the "Aspirin Age?"