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About
Before the media circus of Britney, Paris, and our modern obsession with celebrity, there were the Bright Young People, a voraciously pleasure-seeking band of bohemian party-givers and blue-blooded socialites who romped through the gossip columns of 1920s London. Evelyn Waugh immortalized their slang, their pranks, and their tragedies in his novels, and over the next half century, many-from Cecil Beaton to Nancy Mitford and John Betjeman-would become household names.
But, beneath the veneer of hedonism and practical jokes was a tormented generation, brought up in the shadow of war. Sparkling talent was too often brought low by alcoholism and addiction. Drawing on the virtuosic and often wrenching writings of the Bright Young People themselves, the biographer and novelist D. J. Taylor has produced an enthralling account of an age of fleeting brilliance.
But, beneath the veneer of hedonism and practical jokes was a tormented generation, brought up in the shadow of war. Sparkling talent was too often brought low by alcoholism and addiction. Drawing on the virtuosic and often wrenching writings of the Bright Young People themselves, the biographer and novelist D. J. Taylor has produced an enthralling account of an age of fleeting brilliance.
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Reviews
"[Taylor] tells this story with a good deal of essayistic flair, precision and flyaway wit. Just as important, he relates this ultimately elegiac narrative with a surprising amount of intellectual and emotional sympathy."
Dwight Garner, The New York Times
"Engaging . . . D. J. Taylor has created that rarest of books--one you can safely recommend both to scholars of Evelyn Waugh and the entourage of Paris Hilton . . . Taylor's skillful reconstruction of the whole hazy time feels like a lasting party favor."
Troy Patterson, NPR
"[An] incisive social history . . . [A] richly detailed work."
Caryn James, The New York Times Book Review