Edie: An American Biography - Hardcover

Jean Stein

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0394488199 ISBN 13: 9780394488196

Publisher: Knopf, 1982

Synopsis

The short life of Edie Sedgwick and her rise to become one of the Warhol superstars, as viewed by her family and personalities including Capote, Vidal, and Warhol

About this title

From the Inside Flap

When Edie was first published in 1982 it quickly became an international best-seller and then took its place among the classic books about the 1960s. Edie Sedgwick exploded into the public eye like a comet. She seemed to have it all: she was aristocratic and glamorous, vivacious and young, Andy Warhol's superstar. But within a few years she flared out as quickly as she had appeared, and before she turned twenty-nine she was dead from a drug overdose.

In a dazzling tapestry of voices--family, friends, lovers, rivals--the entire meteoric trajectory of Edie Sedgwick's life is brilliantly captured. And so is the Pop Art world of the '60s: the sex, drugs, fashion, music--the mad rush for pleasure and fame. All glitter and flash on the outside, it was hollow and desperate within--like Edie herself, and like her mentor, Andy Warhol. Alternately mesmerizing, tragic, and horrifying, this book shattered many myths about the '60s experience in America.

"This is the book of the Sixties that we have been waiting for."--Norman Mailer

"Through a kaleidoscope of seemingly fragmented voices, patterns form, giving brilliant definition to the very American tragedy of Edie Sedgwick, a woman...not likely to be forgotten after this haunting portrait."--Publishers Weekly

"Extraordinary...a fascinating narrative that is both meticulously reported and expertly orchestrated."--The New York Times

"An exceptionally seductive biography.... You can't put it down.... It has novelistic excitement."--Los Angeles Times Book Review

"What makes this book so unusual, unique almost, is the picture it paints of the New York counterculture. No one has ever done it better."--The Atlanta Journal & Constitution

Jean Stein has worked as an editor for a number of magazines, including The Paris Review and Esquire, when it was under the direction of the near-legendary magazine editor Clay Felker. In the 1960s, she moved to Washington, D.C. where, through her husband, attorney William Vanden Heuvel, she became interested in the political career of Robert F. Kennedy. Following his assassination, she completed her first book, an oral history of his life entitled American Journey. In 1990, she became the editor of the literary journal Grand Street. She has two daughters: Wendy, an actress, and Katrina, the editor-in-chief of The Nation.

About the Author

Jean Stein has worked as an editor for a number of magazines, including The Paris Review and Esquire. She is co-author, with George Plimpton, of American Journey: The Times of Robert Kennedy and in 1990 she became the editor of the literary journal Grand Street, until it ended in 2004. It was described by The New York Times as 'one of the most revered literary magazines of the postwar era'. George Plimpton was an author, an actor and a literary patron. In 1953 he co-founded The Paris Review and his books, including Out of My League, Paper Lion, Mad Ducks and Bears, One More July, Shadow Box, The Man in the Flying Lawn Chair, Truman Capote and The Bogey Man. He died in September 2003.

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 1982
• ISBN 10: 0394488199
• ISBN 13: 9780394488196
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 455
• Editor: George Plimpton