So I have finally decided that yes. I am definitely moving to Boston, which is, as my favorite time-traveling movie crush Marty McFly would say, "heavy." For a Steel Magnolia such as myself, who has never lived more than two hours from my hometown in South Carolina, going up North is the equivalent to a mortal sin to some of my friends and family. But I was never one to stick to the rules all the time. And I have had the distinct pleasure of reading two great biographies that have fueled the rebel that lies within:
Savage Beauty (Edna St. Vincent Millay) by Nancy Milford and
Anita Loos by Gary Carey.
Edna St. Vincent Millay has been one of my favorite writers since I took a class in college called "Sophisticated Ladies." The tongue in cheek title of the class should have been a hint to me what an amazing class this would be, but at the time, I knew nothing about 1920's women writers. Millay was one of the first that we covered, and I fell in love with her the moment I read "First Fig."
My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--
It gives a lovely light.
How could you not like a lady who writes something so sexy and intelligent in a time when women were not supposed to be either. She helped bring both concepts in vogue in the late 1900's. She was always fighting some establishment in her life: loneliness, marriage, sexism, political stances, etc. She marched in for the lives of two prisoners in front of the Boston capital. She made a marriage work that no one thought would be possible. She wan the Pulitzer Prize, something no woman had accomplished before. She challenged some of the leading poets, including herself, on a regular basis. She was a genius who let drugs destroy her mind. But for many years, her light
did give "a lovely light."
Anita Loos was not the genius the Millay was, but my goodness, she was just as sassy! She wrote one of my favorite books
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. She also wrote dozens of plays and movies (many things for Clark Gable, Douglas Fairbanks, The Talmadge Sisters, etc.) She was a cutthroat business woman and as witty as they come. Unfortunately, she was not as dominant in her personal life. There were several times I wanted to reach through the pages, and time, and shake Loos. "Leave the crummy mooch!" But every leading lady must have a fatal flaw, and like most of her heroines in the plays and movies she wrote, that flaw was the unexplainable love for a scoundrel. Which, coincidentally, has always been my problem.
I related to both of these women on different levels, but I think it's time to take another page out of their books. I need to do something daring. And I think that that something is waiting for me in Boston. The Sweet Tea Queen is coming to town!
