"The Guest List" by Ethan Mordden: Book Review

"The Guest List" by Ethan Mordden
St. Martin's, 317 pp., $29.99
Reviewed by David Marshall James


If Ethan Mordden had been composing the definitive texts on American history while I was feeling my way through academia, then I might well be the possessor of a Ph.D. in the subject at present.

There's nothing dry about Mordden, except that his style exhibits the flavor and kick of a superlatively shaken martini, served ice cold in a classic-style, long-stemmed, etched crystal glass (picture Lana Turner and her exquisite drinks cart in "Ziegfeld Girl" [1941], before Lana's literal fall from The Follies into speakeasy despair).

Speaking of Ziegfeld-- Mordden's most recent tome before this one covered the great showman-- I did earn an "A" in high-school history, thanks in part to a presentation on "Flo." Didn't hurt that the teacher was fresh from Tri-Delt, and the report included a recording of Irving Berlin's "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody," one of her sorority chapter's favored ditties.

Mordden takes on Berlin and Cole Porter among the Broadway highlights of tis lustrous look at New York City's cultural, social, and political elite (specifically, how that term evolved over the decades of the 20th century) and how they intrigued, influenced, and infuriated the nation at-large, from Caroline Astor's (call her "Mrs.") balls up to Truman Capote's.

The author includes plenty of literati, among them the Algonquin Round Table regulars, with an accent on the contrasting careers and personalities of Edna Ferber and Dorothy Parker. The New Yorker magazine's "street stylists" John O' Hara and Damon Runyon come into play, as well as newspaper columnists Walter Winchell and Dorothy Thompson (wed to novelist Sinclair Lewis).

However, Mordden's is not a hodgepodgery of famous names. Rather, he connects them, weaving a tapestry of the city that moves from the carriage trade of Mrs. Astor's day, to the grand hotels that the Astors built on Fifth Avenue, Broadway, and Park Avenue, to an emerging celebritocracy that thrived on headlines and scandals, be they gangsters or soubrettes.

Mordden presents a first-rate chapter on the city's wildly corrupt politics, taking in Tammany Hall and the exploitation of Irish voting blocs, up through Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia's virtually graft-free administration (I'd like to see Hizzoner Bloomberg run into a burning building).

The author brings in Charles Lindbergh and the aforementioned Ms. Thompson, the isolationism and interventionism they represented prior to World War II. Afterward, "when the World was free," a growing throng (not least of them black servicemen) began to wonder when the color barrier would be crossed (over those White Cliffs, as it were).

Ethel Waters, as Mordden recounts her life and career, is one of the largely unsung heroines of the cause, in accomplishments over words. Still, when would Josephine Baker receive decent service at the Stork Club? Lena Horne make it into "21"? Marian Anderson sing at the Met? Leontyne Price open the season at the Met?

But, remember, this is history with a bite: Mordden doesn't withhold editorialization. This man's "a crybaby," that one's a "lavish nonentity," and she's "nuts."

Well, it's his book. Write on, Mr. Mordden.



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