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Title: American Rose
Subtitle: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee
Author: Karen Abbott
Narrator: Bernadette Dunne
Format: Unabridged
Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
Language: English
Release date: 12-28-10
Publisher: Random House Audio
Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 95 votes
Genres: History, American
Publisher's Summary:
With the critically acclaimed Sin in the Second City, best-selling author Karen Abbott pioneered sizzle history (USA Today). Now she returns with the gripping and expansive story of Americas coming-of-agetold through the extraordinary life of Gypsy Rose Lee and the world she survived and conquered.
America in the Roaring Twenties. Vaudeville was king. Talking pictures were only a distant flicker. Speakeasies beckoned beyond dimly lit doorways; money flowed fast and free. But then, almost overnight, the Great Depression leveled everything. When the dust settled, Americans were primed for a star who could distract them from grim reality and excite them in new, unexpected ways. Enter Gypsy Rose Lee, a strutting, bawdy, erudite stripper who possessed a preternatural gift for delivering exactly what America needed.
With her superb narrative skills and eye for compelling detail, Karen Abbott brings to vivid life an era of ambition, glamour, struggle, and survival. Using exclusive interviews and never-before-published material, she vividly delves into Gypsys world, including her intensely dramatic triangle relationship with her sister, actress June Havoc, and their formidable mother, Rose, a petite but ferocious woman who seduced men and women alike and literally killed to get her daughters on the stage.
American Rose chronicles their story, as well as the story of the four scrappy and savvy showbiz brothers from New York City who would pave the way for Gypsy Rose Lees brand of burlesque. Modeling their shows after the glitzy, daring reviews staged in the theaters of Paris, the Minsky brothers relied on grit, determination, and a few tricks that fell just outside the lawand they would shape, and ultimately transform, the landscape of American entertainment.
Critic Reviews:
A delicious history . . . a lush love letter to the underworld . . . [Abbott] describes the Levees characters in such detail that its easy to mistake this meticulously researched history for literary fiction. (The New York Times Book Review)
[Abbotts] research enables the kind of vivid description à la fellow journalist Erik Larsons The Devil in the White City that makes what could be a dry historic account an intriguing read. (The Seattle Times)
[A] satisfyingly lurid tale . . . Change the hemlines, add 100 years, and the book could be filed under current affairs. (USA Today)