November 2006

Offbeat Travel

You are in for a treat, especially if you are a fan of Dorothy Parker.
This book takes you back to the New York City of her time and you will
never be the same after reading this book.

The longing to have lived then overtakes you almost from the first page.
The excitement, the insanity, the brilliance of Dorothy Parker and her
cohorts comes alive right before your eyes. The author, Kevin Fitzpatrick,
is the founder of the Dorothy Parker Society and he leads walking tours of
the Algonquin Round Table homes and haunts in Manhattan. He knows all of
the stories good and bad, happy and sad and he tells those stories to you,
showing you the places and archival photos from the time and place of each
one.

The book is creatively illustrated not only with photos but also with
pictures of the artwork, posters, and design of the period. And the very
best part is that so many of these places actually still exist. The book
provides you with street maps and diagrams and makes everything you are
dreaming of doing possible. I am a Dorothy Parker fan and I loved this
book.

short review:
You are in for a treat...you will never be the same after reading this
book.

News from the Upper West Side. West Side YMCA:

The Writer's Voice Visiting Author Series Presents:
Marion Meade, Editor, The Portable Dorothy Parker
& Kevin C. Fitzpatrick, president of the Dorothy Parker Society and author of A Journey into Dorothy Parker's New York

Friday, June 9, 2006
8:00 PM
Discussion/Q & A/Panel
West Side YMCA-- The George Washington Lounge
5 West 63rd Street (between Central Park West & Broadway)
~Admission Free and Open to the Public~

We are pleased to continue our partnership with 67Wine, who in part provide beverages for our readings, in order to make your experience here even more pleasurable. Please visit their web site.

Copies of the new edition of "The Portable Dorothy Parker" and "A Journey into Dorothy Parker's New York" will be available for sale from our good friends at BookCourt, from downtown Brooklyn. Visit their web site.

The West Side YMCA is around the corner from Dorothy Parker's old apartment. Tonight, we honor and celebrate a born and bred Upper West-sider with Marion Meade, the editor of "The Portable Dorothy Parker" (now available in a stunning new edition) and Kevin C. Fitzpatrick, president of the Dorothy Parker Society and author of A Journey into Dorothy Parker's New York.

We are located at 5 W. 63rd Street, between Central Park West & Broadway. Accessible Trains: A, C, B, D, 1 & 9 to Columbus Circle.

The New York Times today had a feature on the book as part of its "Reading New York" column. It was the lead item, ahead of two other famous New Yorkers: former mayors Koch and Giuliani.

Heard about this one over the weekend in TravelSmart. It says:

Reviewed by Tom Gates

After devouring Kevin C. Fitzpatrick's book, you might be tempted to think of it as a Dorothy Parker encyclopedia - since it is filled with just about everything one could hope to discover about the noted writer, critic, defender of human and civil rights and humorist - although she herself preferred the term "satirist."

She is also somewhat fancifully described as being comprised of "equal parts bootleg scotch, Broadway lights, speakeasy smoke, skyscraper steel, streetcar noise, and jazz horns" - since, for much of her extraordinary life, the former Dorothy Rothschild worked and played on the isle of Manhattan.

This is a book so well documented with street maps, footnotes, and photographs that one could easily use it to organize a "Dorothy Parker Walking Tour"; although that's one of the things that the author, who is also the founder of the Dorothy Parked Society, specializes in.

Both the public and private lives of Ms. Parker are examined; her friends, her enemies, her marriages, her love affairs, her years with Vogue, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, as well as her work as screenwriter. It turns out that she co-wrote two of Hollywood's finest films, the original version of A Star Is Born and Smash-up; The Story Of A Woman, earning her an Oscar nomination for each.

As for her "defender of human and civil rights" moniker, Fitzpatrick tells us that in her last will and testament, Parker's estate went to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a man she greatly admired but had never met. For her epitaph, incidentally, she suggested the phrase "Excuse My Dust."

Not surprisingly, a fair amount of the book is devoted to her years as a member of the fabled "round table" at the Algonquin Hotel which began in 1919 as a welcome-home luncheon roast in honor of New York Times drama critic Alexander Woollcott and continued for the next ten years. Ultimately, the "round table" was home to such glittering literatti as Robert Benchley, Edna Ferber, George S. Kaufman, Tallulah Bankhead, Robert Sherwood, Marc Connelly and Harpo Marx. Fitzpatrick reminds us that Ms. Parker produced much of her finest and most enduring work during this manic decade.

Those who are already familiar with Dorothy Parker's quick wit thanks to such oft repeated lines such as, "I love a martini; two at the very most. Three and I'm under the table; four and I'm under the host", will revel in the wealth of material associated with one of New York's most memorable, talented and colorful citizens.

From Library Journal:

Fitzpatrick, Kevin C. A Journey into Dorothy Parker's New York. Roaring Forties. (ArtPlace). 2005. 160p. photogs. maps. index. ISBN 0-9766706-0-7. pap. $19.95. TRAV

Fitzpatrick, founder and president of the Dorothy Parker Society, has put together a stunning and highly entertaining book that combines biography, architecture, literature, and travel. It documents the many sites that Parker -- the quintessential New Yorker and celebrated writer who, upon returning from Los Angeles, once quipped, "I get up every morning and want to kiss the pavement" -- lived, worked, socialized, and died. In 79 color and 75 black-and-white photographs and five maps, the book moves from Parker's first 24 years on the Upper West Side to her declining years on the Upper East Side, with midtown and the theater district -- her hangouts while writing for Vogue, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker -- sandwiched in between. With a detailed time line of Parker's life, a further reading list, informative Internet destinations, and a comprehensive index, this first volume in the publisher's new "ArtPlace" series (upcoming volumes include Georgia O'Keeffe's New Mexico and Goya's Madrid) is highly recommended.
-- Melinda Stivers Leach, Precision Editorial Svcs., Wondervu, CO

I was happy to go to 192 Books for the book talk/signing on Thursday, Dec. 15. We had another full house for the talk, and with the lousy weather and the threat of subway strike, we got lucky.

What I didn't like was that the bookstore only decided to order about 15 copies of the book, which quickly sold out. There were guests who had come great distances to the talk and get the book, and they were unlucky. So I told them that since they didn't order enough books, go to the Corner Bookstore (Madison and E. 93rd) because they order a lot; or Barnes & Noble, which has ordered at least 6 copies for every store in the city.

The turnout was great! Susan the dogwalker was there, a lot of old friends and Parker Society friends.

The evening of Wednesday, Dec. 14, I went to Elberon, New Jersey, for a reading at the Elberon branch of the Long Branch Free Public Library. It was was a fullhouse for the combination talk and holiday party. It was so much fun.

The evening was sponsored by Friends of the Long Branch Library, the Long Branch Historical Association and the Long Branch Arts Council. The groups put out an amazing spread of food and desserts too.



Kevin and Ingrid Bruck, the director of the library.









There was a raffle drawing at the end of the evening. Guess who picked the winners?

Long Branch is the birthplace of Dorothy Parker. The little town of West End, a part of Long Branch, is where Dorothy Rothschild was born in 1893. It is now a national literary landmark, thanks to the people of the area and the Dorothy Parker Society.

It was so nice to meet all these terrific people. We look forward to Dorothy Parker Day in August 2006 on the Jersey Shore!

The very first review came out today. And it is in Publisher's Weekly (online edition). Very exciting!

The first reading, from The Corner Bookstore, was incredible. It was SRO and packed. The owners were very nice and the crowd was enthusiastic. It went so well.

Manhattan Society took some photos; so did my wife, Chrissie. Here are some photos.












Kevin Fitzpatrick and his parents, Don and Val Fitzpatrick.




Telling some stories.

The book is out. It was spotted today at Barnes & Noble in Rockefeller Center. And it is in 192 Books in Chelsea and the Corner Bookstore on the Upper East Side.

We also have a story about the launch party on Gridskipper.

Photos tomorrow!