Review: Five Sisters: The Langhornes of Virginia, by James Fox

[mariness]

I adore great big fat gossipy biographies disguised as "scholarly studies" complete with pages and pages and pages of footnotes, especially when they are a) about people long dead, so no one feels inclined to hold back, b) they contain lots and lots of scandal, by which I mean, relationships, sex, gambling, drinking, and wild adventures gone bad

Comments

[kellinator]

This was fascinating but now I am wasting too much time on Wikipedia because I love reading about crazy rich people.

[mariness]

I definitely need a biography of the youngest sister. Alcoholics named Lefty! Comforting Scott Fitzgerald! Multiple affairs tolerated and perhaps welcomed by a husband (she seems to have been poly before polyamory became a trend). Wild and glorious shopping sprees! I need to live like that :) Well, perhaps without the part where I am comforting sobbing drunken writers.

[foms]

"Her marriage allowed her to introduce her sisters to other well to do men"

I read this as
Her marriage allowed her to introduce her sisters to other, well, to do men.

Hmm...

Hyphens?

[mariness]

Erk.

[shadefell]

This book sounds really interesting, problems aside.

Also, while I'm squawking, men who fall in love with and have sexual relationships with both men and women are bisexual, not homosexual, even if they got arrested for homosexual activities.
Hum. Is that like some kind of sexual one-drop rule? "I'm sorry, but you've had same-sex sexual intercourse once. You are forever more gay."

[mariness]

Well, all of them except maybe the eldest had really fascinating lives, and even the eldest sister ended up travelling a lot and spending money and whining, so I guess that counts.

Nancy Astor sounds as if she would have been hell to live with though.

I continue to note a trend of denying or failing to note the existence of bisexuality in biographies. It's a very minor point here, and it only irked me because it's part of a trend.

[shadefell]

I agree with you about the bisexuality issue. It deserves to be called out.