My thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for an advance copy of this book that serves as both a biography and a literary investigation into an author, their life, the life they created, and the persona they presented to the world, a persona even furthered after death.

In college I took a class in experimental literature with a professor who at the time I thought was a little bit of a jerk. Looking back I realize he had tenure, and will some would say he didn't care about teaching, I now know he didn't have to. The lectures were the same as they were the year before, probably hadn't changed since the college had removed the paddling board for unruly students. I wish I could say I noticed the lack of women, even minorities in the syllabus, but I was unaware of the world in many ways. One young woman did ask and began a discussion on Gertrude Stein, teaching me more in her five minutes than I learned that semester. Probably my whole academic career. I also learned a salon is far different from a place where one gets their hair fashioned, and while there is a lot of alcohol, is not a saloon. Years later at a book sale I cam across a boxed set of Gertrude Stein from Australia. The price, and the uniqueness, cheap and really a nice book collection, made me pick it up, and I am so glad. The work was everything the woman from my class said, different, ahead of its time, familiar in some cases, but always unique. Just like Stein, herself, which is captured perfectly in this book. Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife by Francesca Wade is not only a biography but a forensic study of a person who crafted much of her public persona, ably assisted by her wife and companion, with an aim at posterity, creating works that still seem fresh, new and different today.

The book begins with a look at young Gertrude, and her family. Stein was a precocious child, one that loved learning, but learning on her own terms. Stein was attached to her brother as both a companion and a competitor, traveling East where he went to school, and going to college herself with an interest in psychology. This idea petered out, by Europe was calling, spending time with her brother, and more by herself living in England and reading all the great books she could find in the libraries. Paris was next, sharing a room again with her brother, investing in art, and opening her house up to the creative people that filled the city. Stein posed for a young Picasso, feed a young Ernest Hemingway collected early art works, and inspired movements. All this time Stein was writing, dealing with the lack of attention a woman in any arts has, dealing with World Wars, and finding love for the first time with Alice B. Toklas, her companion, her wife, and her image maker after Stein died.

I can go one, but the book is so good that even people familiar with the life of Stein will be riveted. Wade is a very good author, empathetic to her subject, but not beholden. Stein is called out on many things, her ways to just end relationships, a bit of problems with the truth, et al. Wade is also a very good researcher finding lost works in old achieves, digging through papers tucked away, and revealing quite a lot about the Stein, and Toklas. Stein was an early influencer, creating art movements, brining authors to the forefront, and more importantly pushing her own brand to the populace. Wade really has created a fascinating book that tells so much about a character who really should be more celebrated. A book that revealed so much on each page.

Those familiar with Stein will enjoy this, and those new to Stein will have a lot of reading to do later. I know I am going to have to find that collection I bought so many years ago, and look through it again. I know I am going to enjoy it. This was my first book by Francesca Wade, I will have to read more.