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A gripping biography of six extraordinary women who, in their very different ways, epitomise the decade they came of age - the 1920s

About the Author

Judith Mackrell is a celebrated dance critic, writing first for the Independent and now for the Guardian. Her biography of the Russian ballerina Lydia Lopokova, Bloomsbury Ballerina, was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award. She has also appeared on television and radio, as well as writing on dance, co-authoring The Oxford Dictionary of Dance. She lives in London with her family.

Reviews

Flappers is all good, dirty fun . . . Mackrell is an engaging storyteller with a deceptively light touch
*Sunday Telegraph*

Offers a way to look beyond the clichés of the Roaring Twenties into what was actually going on in these women's heads. Mackrell - who writes with great brio - shows us the uncertainly and confusion that often lay behind the brittle artifice.
*Sunday Times*

Scintillating ... Mackrell is clever at painting the subtly complex picture of these women's lives from giddy high spirits to steadfast obstinacy, from emotional fragility to creative focus and weaving them together against a backdrop that is also writ clear. This enthralling, elegant book conjures up all the glamour and razzmatazz but never flinches from the caverns of pain beneath.
*Daily Express*

Judith Mackrell's group biography of six women of the Roaring Twenties is a terrific read.
*Daily Mail*

Engaging
*Mail on Sunday*

Informative and deeply moving ... The strength of this compelling book derives from the cumulative effect of so much pain and suffering endured by these once hopeful young pioneering women
*Literary Review*

Erudite and detailed
*Spectator*

Mackrell interweaves these intense lives with rich detail of their wider worlds . . . she writes beautifully, peppering her prose with their sly one-liners and her own insights, while maintaining a pace as swift as the exhausting lives she describes.
*Kate Colquhoun*

Hugely entertaining . . . in bringing these fascinating women back to life, she reminds today's women that our own lives would be very different without the trails their generation blazed.
*Irish Times*

It's in the bringing together of these highly diverse women under the 'flapper' umbrella that Mackrell's real genius lies, showing us the relationship between an age and the very different individuals who shone during it.
*Independent on Sunday*