Books › The portable Dorothy Parker
The portable Dorothy Parker
First published 1973 · 656 pages
A martini-soaked masterclass in wit that cuts like glass and aches like a broken heart.
What it feels like
Reading this collection feels like sitting at a dimly lit speakeasy table with the smartest, most devastatingly observant person in the room. The pace is brisk and snappy, driven by razor-sharp punchlines and impeccably crafted sentences that skewer social hypocrisy and romantic folly with equal glee. Yet beneath the cynical, martini-soaked mood lies a profound and aching melancholy. The prose is elegant but merciless, capturing the sting of loneliness and the absurdities of the human condition. It is a masterclass in tone, shifting effortlessly from laugh-out-loud satire to quiet, devastating heartbreak. This book will delight readers who crave vintage urban sophistication, biting humor, and the bittersweet reality of loving and losing in a flawed world.
- Mood
- sophisticated
- bittersweet
- martini-soaked
- world-weary
- Tone
- wry
- cynical
- sharp-witted
- melancholic
- satirical
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- romantic disillusionment · social hypocrisy · the sting of loneliness · urban sophistication · the battle of the sexes
- The writing
- Razor-sharp, impeccably timed, and effortlessly elegant, balancing biting wit with devastating emotional precision.
- The arc
- Moves from sharp, laugh-out-loud cynicism to a lingering, surprisingly tender melancholy about human frailty.
- Who it's for
- Readers who appreciate vintage New York glamour, biting satire, and the kind of humor that masks a deeply feeling heart.
Content notes
- alcoholism
- depression
- suicidal ideation
- sexism
About the book
Collection of Parker's stories, poems, essays. It's a small size, but wow, is it full of her great writing! Someone stole my copy, and I'm missing her humor and instinct for saying it like it is, or was, during her days with the Algonquin Round Table. HIGHLY RECOMMEND.
One of the most quotable of twentieth-century authors, Dorothy Parker has attained a wide-ranging and enthusiastic following. This revised and enlarged edition, with an introduction by Brendan Gill, comprises the original 1944 Portable, as selected and arranged by Dorothy Parker herself and including all her most celebrated poems and stories, along with a selection of her later stories, play reviews, articles, book reviews from Esquire, and the complete Constant Reader, her collected New Yorker book reviews. - Back cover.
Description from Open Library.
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