Holy Skirts

An interesting work of ‘bio-fiction’, but rather frustrating. The author takes the life of the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, a woman who, at 19, travels to Berlin and takes to the stage in what is basically an artistic girly show. She takes numerous lovers, some for pay, eventually weds an artist who cannot consummate the marriage, leaves him for their friend, a poet who ends up discouraging her own poetry, they travel to New York where he leaves her, she marries a Baron who is a compulsive gambler who abandons her to go back to Germany and ends up dead. Left penniless, she takes to modeling for artists and falls in with the new Dadaist movement and occasionally selling poems. The censors of the day force the little show more artistic magazines out of the bookstores and out of the mail system. Her is basically one shoe falling after the other. Every time she starts looking up, a bird craps in her face so to speak.

The woman was apparently a talented poet, and probably psychotic, though whether it’s from inherited syphilis or something else one can’t tell. She was a walking bit of performance art, dressing in found art jewelry and clothes altered with all sorts of materials. The book leaves her still in New York; I know she later moved to Paris and had further adventures. The author goes deeply into the Baroness’s mind & soul, making her a sympathetic, fascinating character. Other members of the Dada movement are brought to life; Man Ray uses her as a model and Marcel Duchamp is her unrequited love interest.

Sadly, the book not only fills in the gaps missing from history to fill out the Baroness’s story-necessary in a story like this- but some things get changed around. Names of husbands and dates of marriages don’t follow the actual facts, and I wonder how much else was altered to make a better story. I would have thought the Baroness was an interesting enough person to not do this. show less

You can tell that this was published recently because of the lame subtitle. Actually a very good and suprisingly rich read -- the "Courtney Love" of her generation, the Countess was everywhere...Pretty fascinating.

I love this book, and I am not much for nonfiction or biographies. It is an incredibly rich and fascinating read, and if even a quarter of Elsa's life was truly as it is portrayed in Holy Skirts, she lived the kind of life I an deeply in awe of. This is a book that leaves me with a fresh and joyous perspective on my own life each time I read it...highly, highly recommended!

Absolutely love reading about Dada artists, and Elsa is one of the best!