Becoming the Ex-Wife

"""As Marsha Gordon argues in her engaging new biography, Becoming the Ex-Wife, the novel 'offers a strong case for the protections of marriage and the dangers of being an unattached woman.' . . . In her biography, Gordon makes an excellent case for Parrott as an unjustly forgotten historical figure: a sociological flash point, a beneficiary of feminism and victim of patriarchy who got her enemies mixed up."" * The New Yorker * “Why did a once-transfixed reading public turn away, and why is Parrott so often now eliminated from a pantheon of popular urban “working girl” writers that includes Helen Gurley Brown, Candace Bushnell, Nora Ephron, Dorothy Parker and, perhaps most comparably, Jacqueline Susann? . . . A reissue of Ursula Parrott’s racy novel “Ex-Wife,” and a new biography of its author, remind us of the brazenly talented women sidelined by convention. . . . [Gordon] surfaces plenty of colorful period detail: passport photos of everyone looking mussed and truculent in that Jazz Age way; correspondence from exasperated agents, editors and lovers; even an adorable 'mapback' version marked with key locations in 'Ex-Wife.'” * The New York Times * ""Parrott led a scandalous, glamorous, sometimes lonely life in the public eye, and Gordon, professor and director of the film studies program at North Carolina State University, has done the world a great service by bringing her back into the spotlight."" * Washington City Paper * ""In Becoming the Ex-Wife, Marsha Gordon sheds welcome light on this remarkable and troubled writer, who knew too well how hard it was to be a modern woman who wanted sexual freedom and a career of her own choosing. In this well-researched and fascinating biography, Parrott emerges as a star who should be remembered alongside Jazz Age icons like Dorothy Parker and the Fitzgeralds.” * Newcity Lit * ""[O]ffers an in-depth look at Parrott’s complicated and sometimes scandalous life."" * Walter Magazine * ""Parrott is forgotten and Faulkner is famous. This is so much more than a matter of quality, which is why we need biography. . . . Marsha Gordon makes a compelling case for Parrott’s artistry and continuing relevance. . . . Ms. Gordon does something else that is quite shrewd: She has a concluding chapter, after Parrott has died, which concentrates on her subject’s literary legacy. The story of Parrott’s life is over, but her writing lives on, even if we don’t yet know it.""   * The New York Sun *"