Description
Established as a fashion avatar and controversial Greenwich Village celebrity in the early 1900s, the Baroness Elsa, a German émigré and troublemaking artist, stalks the streets donning unusual garments and poses nude for Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp while witnessing World War I, technological innovations, and a shift in the lives of independent-minded women. By the author of The Fires. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.
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National Book Award FinalistNo one in 1917 New York had ever encountered a woman like the Bar-oness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven -- poet, artist, proto-punk rocker, sexual libertine, fashion avatar, and unrepentant troublemaker. When she wasn't stalking the streets of Greenwich Village wearing a brassiere made from tomato cans, she was enthusiastically declaiming her poems to sailors in beer halls or posing nude for Man Ray or Marcel Duchamp. In an era of brutal war, technological innovation, and cataclysmic change, the Baroness had resolved to create her own destiny -- taking the center of the Dadaist circle, breaking every bond of female propriety . . . and transforming herself into a living, breathing work of art.
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