It doesn't help, I'm sure, that I read this on the heels of Jason Fagone's The Woman Who Smashed Codes, one of the best biographies I've read in ages. Sarah Murphy and Elizebeth Friedman - code-smasher extraordinaire - were contemporaries, but if they had more in common than that, I'm afraid I didn't quite get there. That's not to knock Sara Murphy, nor author Amanda Vaill, per se. Murphy was simply far, far less interesting to me, and Vaill's work far more of a traditional biography (read: deep into the weeds on every aspect of Murphy's life) to hold my attention for more than half of the book.
That said, as I skimmed the latter half of the book, I stopped regularly to read passages of the Murphys time with the Hemingways and the Fitzgeralds; excerpts of a letter from F. Scott here or there offer the expected delight. The lines that resonated most with me were these, early, "....most unsettling, was that edge about her, that repressed wildness, that sense that..."I have no idea what she will do, or say, or propose."" Having been accused of the same, I couldn't help but laugh.
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