February House: The Story of W. H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Jane and Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten, and Gypsy Rose Lee, Under One Roof in Brooklyn

George Davis was a very important person, previously completely unknown to me. He and Gypsy Rose Lee first met as teenagers (she much younger) in a Michigan bookstore where he was a clerk and she was still Louise Hovick, browsing for books to buy and read between her acts with sister June (Havoc). George recommended and sold her a copy of Shakespeare's sonnets. In his adult years in NYC, George was, for some time, the literary editor of Harper's Bazaar, the fashion magazine that also published articles and stories.While George was sometimes a writer, his greatest talents were as an editor helping other writers find their voices (& publishers if needbe) and also finding and befriending significant talent in the arts (literary, music, visual, theater, etc).About 2 years before the USA entered WW-II (07Dec41), George had the dream of creating a boarding house in Brooklyn where such people would reside and provide ideas and company to each other. W.H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Gypsy Rose Lee, Benjamin Britten, Jane & Paul Bowles, Oliver Smith, and Klaus Mann, were among the more prominent residents but the house became an evening gathering and party place for all kinds of well known and up-and-coming artsy people.Under George's excellent tutelage, Gypsy wrote and published "The G-String Murders" plus gained the skill to later write her eponymous "Gypsy: a Memoir" and much else. George similarly helped Carson McCullers with her work (& life). The apartment/boarding house was nicknamed "February House" because so many residents had birthdays in that month. While the house folded shortly after Pearl Harbor, it had a very significant and lasting effect on mid 20th century fine arts.Author Sherrill Tippins did a fantastic job of integrating her research and telling her story as if she'd lived in that time and place. Her treatment of Auden and McCullers is especially detailed and she gives us behind the scenes looks at the experiences and motivations that shaped some aspects of their works and their lives.

There was a lot of serious biographical research behind this book, and I learned a lot about the legendary inhabitants of this house back in the late 1930s and 40s. It's still hard to imagine all of these amazing characters living under one roof at the same time, and writing and composing some of their best work. Lots of fascinating and hilarious stories, and a vivid description of an extraordinary time and place. I loved it.

Sherill Tippins has written masterfully of the lives of many of the mid-20th century artistic luminaries from both sides of the Atlantic who gathered in a newly formed group house in Brooklyn Heights and found inspiration and encouragement in launching their various careers. Each character is well developed, and Tippins leaves no loose ends in informing readers of what happens to each. It is no surprise that so many of the subjects were gay. However, to a 2013 reader, it is interesting to see how many of these persons nonetheless felt social compulsion to have opposite sexed marriages for business or social purposes. A really great read. House founder George Davis was a gifted talent scout and impressario in bringing together this group.

The pre-World War II era highlighted in this book enlightens us about that trying time with which a lot of people are not presently familiar. Therefore, it is an important book to be read at this time, in addition to its main purpose which is to chronicle the interesting lives of a group of accomplished artists as they influenced each other and created lasting works of art. Perhaps the most outstanding contribution of the book is the way the author deftly describes each of the writers, composers, and poets in depth, providing the reader with a better understanding of the creative process. Also, she expresses a nostalgia that many of us feel when we walk in the steps of people from the past, and view a moment or two of their lives when prompted by memorabilia whether it be a glove, photograph, old house, or when we read such a book as this. I recommend it as an intellectual adventure and as lively entertainment (having not mentioned the fascinating tidbits).

Fascinating history of an amazing group of artists, and as a gay man a wonderfully real retelling of artistic icons in our midst

Not enough Bowles

7 Middagh Street literally doesn't exist any longer. It was torn down to make way for an Expressway. During the last decade of his life the poet Frank O'Hara lived in four different apartments in Manhattan and at least one of them has a commemorative plague. If 7 Middagh Street were still standing the entire building would have to be bronzed. George Davis, the fiction editior for "Harper's Bizaar," rented and renovated the house with the assistance of friends W. H. Auden and Carson McCullers. Together they sought to create a kind of year round Yaddo - a boarding house for artists. They were joined by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, Jane and Paul Bowles, Gypsy Rose Lee, Oliver Smith and Klaus Mann (among others). This is their story. As you can imagine, life at 7 Middagh Street was anything but boring.This is the kind of biographical history I most enjoy reading. It focuses on a very specific period of time, communicating brilliantly the personal and professional triumphs and failures, as well as the ravaging effects of current world events these artists were dealing with while living together. It provides just the right balance of background material on each resident without ever becoming bogged down in trivial details that interrupt the natural progression of the story. Yes, there is a certain amount of "dirt." The spats between Auden and Paul Bowles are well documented, and the endless parade of sailors, the parties that lasted until dawn, the battling McCullers. Most of the residents, even those who were married, were either homosexual or bisexual. The book, and this history, is simply fascinating. If you care at all about 20th century art - literature and music especially - this is a book you shouldn't miss.

Schoene book, auch spannend geschrieben. Man lernt ziemlich viel ueber diese menschen, und diese Zeit und ist trotzdem sehr unterhaltet. Empfehlenswert

The Setting: A disintegrating three storey brownstone house in Brooklyn Heights.The Time: The year during which Europe was collapsing like a pack of cards under the impact of the Nazi juggernaut, with only Great Britain barely holding its own and the USA still clinging to neutrality between good and evil.The Dramatis Personae: Some of the most outstanding talents of embattled western culture - expatriate Brits, (the poet WH Auden, the composer Benjamin Britten and his partner, the singer Peter Pears, the pacifist writer Christopher Isherwood of 'Goodbye to Berlin' fame); the German refugee Thomas Mann and his family; a sprinkling of US writers (Carson McCullers from the Deep South, Gypsy Rose Lee, a famed striptease artist exploring a new career as a writer of murder mysteries), and many others.The Cocktail Mixer: The author of the book, Sherril Tippis, a talented writer and meticulous researcher.The Product: A rich tale which moves with seamless ease from confrontation with the painful moral dilemmas of the time, through love and romance (more often of the homo- than the heterosexual variety), infidelity and betrayal, to the mundane problems of collecting rent, keeping the property from falling apart, allocating chores, deciding on menus and guest lists for the communal dining room and assuring that the hours set aside for creative activity were protected from the intrusions of a constant flow of visitors.The central character in this ensemble was undoubtedly WH Auden. In his poetry he gave expression to the struggle to define his obligations to society as a poet and as a human being. At the same time he was involved in the most intense love affair of his life. And with all this also found time to act as 'house mother' and offer friendship, support and encouragement to his fellow tenants.February House is a book that can be savored by all, not only by those who, like me, grew up during WW2 and were influenced in their adolescence by at least some of the residents of February House and their guests.

This is a thoughtful, well written account of the lives and times and an interesting group of artists and writers and the house in Brooklyn Heights where they once lived during the War. I heartily recommend the book, however I suggest not buying this paperback edition because the 22 illustrations that are in the original edition have simply been left out. The text describing the illustrations – mostly photos – remains. But it's not very satisfying to read a caption for a photo of the house in question at 7 Middagh Street and not have the photo. Were the illustrations left out on purpose or was this some printing error? Who knows?

The totality of artistic egos who lived together in 7 Maddagh (pronounced Maddaw) in 1940 and 1941 always varied as people moved in and out to pursue their artistic muse for various projects. W H Auden, the premier poet of his age, provided a certain stability by insisting that people paid rent when they could, and marking out the mornings for work with a gradual slacking off as the day progressed, until in the evening it was pretty much open house with alcohol and Benzedrine always available. Providing the tone was the influential editor George Davis, (short in stature, but broodingly good-looking) when not embroiled with a series of sailors from the nearby docks, to whom he was variously in thrall. When Wystan met Chester Kallman, a young poet and writer, he pronounced himself "Mad with happiness," and their affair was ongoing pretty much all through the 1940-1941 period of the house's habitation. Another stalwart of the house was Carson McCullers, married to Reeves McCullers and it was during this period that she wrote two best-sellers, The Member of the Wedding, and The Ballad of the Sad Café. Their marriage was to ultimately fail, as Reeves found it impossible to write anything measuring up to his wife's output, and the couple parted at the end of 1941.Benjamin Britten wrote his opera Paul Bunyan there, while living with the singer Peter Pears, though its reception was less than encouraging for him, tainted as it was by the fact that he had left England to live in America. All of the English who lived there had to bear with Cyril Connolley's jibes across the Atlantic in his magazine Horizon, who saw the desertion of their country as reprehensible in a time of war. Not that people like Paul and Jane Bowles were too discommoded by this censure. (Jane wrote her seminal novel Two Serious Ladies, at 7 Maddagh, which became a Modernist cult classic). Also taking up a room was Gipsy Rose Lee, who was writing her detective novel, The G String Murders, between performances downtown, and being tutored by George Davis "the one editor associated with the stratosphere of literature," according to Gore Vidal. Other guests included Salvadore Dali and his wife Gala, Oliver Smith, the future Broadway set designer, Richard Wright, the prominent black author, an admirer of Carson McCullers' writing, and, following the death of her first husband Kurt Weill, Lotte Lenya, who married George Davis and built a successful singing career. This book gives chapter and verse of this extraordinary experiment in communal living. It makes fascinating reading, involving the careers of people such as Klaus Mann and his sister Erika, the poet Louis MacNeice, and recounting such episodes as the attack on his lover made by Wystan Auden that caused their irrevocable breakup. Much of the life of the inhabitants was sadly chaotic, though fruitful, and the books the poetry and the music provided a lasting tribute to this extraordinary period of communal life.

A fasinating read if you are interested in Auden, Britten, Pears, Carson McCullers and others who lived together in America as the world war began in Europe. I found myself exploring the lives of artists composers and authors who escaped deportation to begin new lives in America.