Gertrude Stein
An Afterlife
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- $33.99
Publisher Description
Named One of the Best Ten Books of 2025 by The Washington Post Book World
Named a Best Book of the Year by Artforum
Drawing on never-before-seen interviews, a richly researched, sweeping examination of one of the most influential and mythologized literary figures of the 20th century and her partner’s emergence from the shadows after her death, in the decades-long fight to ensure her legacy.
Gertrude Stein’s salon at 27 rue de Fleurus in the 6th arrondissement of Paris is the stuff of literary legend. Many have tried to capture the spirit and glamour of the place that once entertained and fostered the likes of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, and Henri Matisse, but perhaps none as determinedly, and self-consciously, as Stein herself. In this new biography of the polarizing, trailblazing author, collector, salonnière, and tastemaker, Francesca Wade rescues Stein from the tangle of contradictions that has characterized her legacy, expertly presenting us with this towering literary figure as we’ve never seen her before.
A genius to her admirers, a charlatan to her detractors, Stein achieved international celebrity in 1933 with her bestselling memoir, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, written in the voice of her devoted partner—a triumph which, ironically, only drew attention away from the avant-garde poetry she called her “real” writing. After Stein’s death in 1946, Alice B. Toklas made it her mission to shepherd all of Stein’s unpublished writing into print, all the while negotiating her own fraught role in the complex mythology they had built together. The biographers who flocked to Stein’s newly opened archive found a surprising trove of secrets which would change Stein’s image forever: a forgotten novel, a cache of love letters, and a series of notebooks which shed entirely new light on her early years in Paris.
Pushing beyond the conventions of literary biography, Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife is a bold, innovative examination of the nature of legacy and memory itself, in which Wade uncovers the origins of Stein’s radical writing and reveals new depths to the storied relationship that made it possible. A captivating, brilliant work of biography, Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife is a groundbreaking examination of a true literary giant.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This innovative biography of Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) from Square Haunting author Wade assesses the influential writer's life and legacy. Believing that truly groundbreaking artists were not appreciated in their lifetimes, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas author was obsessed with her own legacy, Wade explains, and sent her manuscripts, letters, and notebooks to the Yale University Library before her death. The first half of the book chronicles Stein's childhood in California, her move to Paris, and her keen eye for modern art, the principles of which she tried to translate into her writing. The second half, however, is what makes the biography so distinctive; in it, Wade explores how scholars constructed Stein's posthumous legacy. In particular, she draws on notes from literary scholar Leon Katz, who interviewed Stein's life partner Alice B. Toklas in 1952. Wade, who believes she was the first researcher to examine these notes, explains how they elucidate Toklas's commitment to Stein but also reveal Toklas as "a woman with her own private past, negotiating her position in a life devoted to another." Toklas found herself in the ultimate conundrum: intensely private, she did not want to talk about her life with Stein, yet she was desperate for Stein to receive the plaudits Toklas felt she deserved. Wade's knowledgeable insights and clear affection for her subject, warts and all, make this a thoroughly captivating portrait. Anyone intrigued by the legend of Stein and Toklas will find this a windfall.
