Anything Goes

Lucy Moore's biography of the Roaring Twenties is a masterpiece of popular history, as addictive as a good novel. The book it's structured thematically with chapters on literature, sport and Hollywood among other things and the switch from subject to subject is seamless so there is a easy flow throughout that draws the reader on and makes it truly unputdownable. All the great figures you could hope to meet are included, Al Capone, Charlie Chaplin, F. Scott Fitzgerald, as well as figures less well known to readers unfamiliar with the history of early Twentieth Century America.

Moore is starkly truthful about the period, she delves beneath the glamour and glitz to the darker undercurrents pervading these years. Particularly insightful was her chapter on the 'lost generation', those artists and writers who for us epitomise the age. Eighty years later the art and literature of the 1920's remains a strong part of popular culture, books like Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby are still bestsellers and the styles of the Art Deco movement are never long out of fashion. But the carefree lifestyle of endless parties and sparkling champagne that we think of when we imagine this golden age of America was based on a disillusionment deep seated in the consciousness of the young men who had come back from the great war. Moore reveals the tragic character behind Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald and their torrid and deeply troubled relationship. The highflying lifestyle they led was lived at an intensity that could not be maintained.

Through Moore's intelligent analysis we see the cracks that pervaded these golden years, though in many ways America was at a peak in the twenties with more money being made than ever before by some inequality was also at a height with racial persecution and a huge gap in wealth between the classes. Everywhere from Hollywood to the White House corruption reigned and America was headed towards a breaking point. The book finishes with the Wall Street Crash and rather than a sensationalist narrative of bankers leaping from the windows of their Wall Street office buildings the true story is presented of an inevitable and slow decline with devastating results.

Having been infatuated by everything Art Deco for many years now I found this history fascinating and utterly compelling. The seeds of modern America are found in these years and many of the great institutions and companies that are familiar symbols of American culture in the modern world come to prominence during this golden age. There is also an eerie familiarity to this history, the boom years followed by a crash of the economy due to reckless bankers. All in all I would highly recommend this book, it is a fascinating insight into a formative period of modern history with echoes that reach to our own time.