Stylish Read: "Ex-Wife"

Norma Shearer in "The Divorcee"*

Be advised "Ex-Wife" is not exactly upbeat. Published in 1929 and reprinted several times, this was the first book by Ursula Parrott, a novelist and prolific short story writer for women's magazines. A roman a clef, "Ex-Wife" is her best remembered work. I would not have known of it or Ursula Parrott but for a much-belated obituary recently in the New York Times. There was none when she died in 1957.

Copy and paste this to read it:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/10/obituaries/ursula-parrott-overlooked.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Dk4.PqAC.NDSWtilgIlmj&smid=url-share

An early edition

The ex-wife of the title is young, still in her early 20s, whose marriage dissolves under the weight of unintended circumstances. Though I've never had an ex-husband I certainly had an ex-boyfriend—the trauma of which I carried around too long.

The book was considered quite shocking at the time for its frank portrayal of "gay young things" in New York City in the hectic middle of the roaring twenties. The earliest flappers had been rebellious teenage girls. By this time they were adults in a world with no rules how emancipated women should behave. 

Our heroine, Pat, and her slightly older friend, Lucia, are justifying their actions as they go, while running up against the still-ingrained good girl/bad girl double standard of men for women. I won't tell you how it ends, but let's say it would be an odd choice for a Lifetime Movie of the Week.

In time Pat, writing in the first person, reaches a foothold on maturity (we hope). I may not have liked all the characters—certainly some of the men, who become almost interchangeable—but I could see a little bit of Pat in my younger self, trying in vain to redo the over-and-done. And not for nothing, my mother would have been Pat's age and briefly living in New York City around then. For the hundredth time I wondered what she might have been like as a young woman.

Ursula Parrott, strikingly modern-looking

What makes "Ex-Wife" relevant to Allwaysinfashion? The book is a fabulous glimpse into the look of the period. Pat is consumed with appearances—clothes, hair, makeup, style (hers and every other woman's). Interestingly she is also an ad copywriter for a department store. Pat is so clueless she has no problem in her deepest misery being cheered by borrowing a gold wrap to put over a red dress. Her solution to anything is buy a new outfit or at least have a manicure. Even lingerie is important. In the middle of recording a heart-to-heart with Lisa she will mention details of the negligee Lisa is wearing. Clothes hold her together as she deals with her life.

"Recollection that the last time (name withhold not to give away the plot) ever saw me, I was wearing a bright red dress from Paris, with a hat that matched it precisely, and a brand new grey Krimmer coat, would be some comfort to me, always. That might be absurd. It was nonetheless profoundly true."

She wore what she wrote...

 
"Ex-Wife" is a fascinating, contemporaneous account of how these "new women" were dressing as well as navigating without a playbook. They had no idea they were creating the plays we've followed (or cast aside) ever since.

 
*"Ex-Wife" was the basis for 1930's "The Divorcee" starring a radiant, Oscar-winning Norma Shearer. Catch it on TCM sometime if you can. And, yes, Ursula Parrott sold scrennplays to Hollywood.