Cover of Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice

Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice

by Janet Malcolm · 2007

+ Want to read

"How had the pair of elderly Jewish lesbians survived the Nazis?" Janet Malcolm asks at the beginning of this extraordinary work of literary biography, criticism, and investigative journalism. The pair, of course, is modernist master Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, the "worker bee" who ministered to Stein's needs throughout their forty-year expatriate "marriage." As Malcolm pursues the mystery of the couple's charmed life in Vichy France, her subject becomes the larger question of biographical truth.

Subject
biographybiographyMore like thisLess of thishistoryhistoryMore like thisLess of thisliterary criticismliterary criticismMore like thisLess of this
Genre
LGBTLGBTMore like thisLess of thishistorical fictionhistorical fictionMore like thisLess of thisWorld War IIWorld War IIMore like thisLess of thisgaygayMore like thisLess of this
Themes
feminismfeminismMore like thisLess of thiswomenwomenMore like thisLess of thisJewishJewishMore like thisLess of thisjournalistsjournalistsMore like thisLess of thisLGBTLGBTMore like thisLess of this
Setting
20th century20th centuryMore like thisLess of thisWorld War IIWorld War IIMore like thisLess of thisParisParisMore like thisLess of thisFranceFranceMore like thisLess of this
Audience
adult
Length
medium · 240 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

BuyAmazonGoogle Books

BorrowOpen LibraryA library near you

MoreCompare pricesHardcover

Liked Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Uncle Mame: The Life Of Patrick Dennis Eric Myers · 2000 Shares biography, nonfiction, memoir
  2. Hemingway: The Paris Years Michael S. Reynolds · 1989 Shares biography, nonfiction, Paris
  3. Henry Miller: The Paris Years Brassai · 1995 Shares biography, nonfiction, memoir
  4. In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution Susan Brownmiller · 2000 Shares nonfiction, feminism, memoir
See more recommendations →

“People who read Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice tend to reach for these next.”

  1. Heartbreak: The Political Memoir of a Feminist Militant Andrea Dworkin · 2002
  2. Wild Girls: Paris, Sappho, and Art: The Lives and Loves of Natalie Barney and Romaine Brooks Diana Souhami · 2004
  3. Searching For The Secret River Kate Grenville · 2006
  4. Women of the Left Bank Shari Benstock · 1976

“If you want more of the same (biography about feminism), start with these.”

  1. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas Gertrude Stein · 1933
  2. Wild Heart: A Life: Natalie Clifford Barney and the Decadence of Literary Paris Suzanne Rodriguez · 2002
  3. Black Sun: The Brief Transit and Violent Eclipse of Harry Crosby Geoffrey Wolff · 1976
  4. Paris Without End: The True Story of Hemingway's First Wife Gioia Diliberto · 1992

“If it was the memoir that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. The Secret Life of Aphra Behn Janet Todd · 1997
  2. Not Pretty Enough: The Unlikely Triumph of Helen Gurley Brown Gerri Hirshey
  3. The Queen of Whale Cay: The Eccentric Story of 'Joe' Carstairs, Fastest Woman on Water Kate Summerscale, Joe Carstairs · 1997
  4. Mary Renault: A Biography David Sweetman · 1993

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Outlaw Marriages: The Hidden Histories of Fifteen Extraordinary Same-Sex Couples Rodger Streitmatter · 2012
  2. Paris Was a Woman: Portraits from the Left Bank Andrea Weiss · 1995
  3. Everybody's Autobiography Gertrude Stein · 1937
  4. The Book of Salt Monique Truong · 2003

Report a problem