cover image Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?

Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?

Marion Meade. Penguin Books, $20 (459pp) ISBN 978-0-14-011616-8

``Meade's lively biography recounts the unhappy life of the wise-cracking versifier, short story writer and critic,'' reported PW. ``So detailed is Meade's book that this, one imagines, is the last time a biographer will need to explain why so talented a writer could at the same time be so nasty a human being.'' Photos. (Mar.)