Publisher's Synopsis
"It's fitting that Alice B. Toklas, 'wife' and literary impresario of Gertrude Stein, should be the subject of a biography ... and this is a good one, sensitive and lively ... it's clear from this portrait that through her possessive affection she not only had a dominant influence on Stein's life but (for good or ill) on her highly idiosyncratic prose. With her acid tongue, shrewd judgment, vitality, and intense loyalty she was a fairly remarkable person in her-self." - "Publishers Weekly". "Linda Simon writes beautifully of Alice's early years in California, of her Polish-Jewish family, of her growing alienation from her surroundings and gravitation toward artists, of her awareness of the isolating burden homosexuality would force on her ... entertaining, thoroughly researched and well-written ... with a clear gaze fixed on undistorted truth." - "Saturday Review". "A study that shows Toklas as she must have been, not 'Miss Stein's obedient shadow,' ... but a multifaceted and complex creature with her own tastes and standards ... her story is an emotionally stirring experience." - "Washington Post Book World". Linda Simon, in her preface to this Bison Book edition, calls Alice B.;Toklas "a woman who, through a mixture of determination and good luck, invented a new narrative for her life" at a time when options for women were few. Simon is the author of "Thornton Wilder: His World" (1979), "Good Writing" (1988), and other books. She is now working on a biography of William James.
