Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice

by Janet Malcom

Janet Malcolm’s extraordinary work Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice is a compelling blend of literary biography and investigative journalism that explores the fascinating and complex relationship between modernist icon Gertrude Stein and her partner, Alice B. Toklas. The book opens with the central question:

"How had the pair of elderly Jewish lesbians survived the Nazis?"

About the Book:

Malcolm documents honorably the couple's forty-year "marriage," shedding light on their seemingly charmed life in a village in Vichy France. As she uncovers the truth, the narrative expands to address the larger question of biographical truth itself, revealing that "The instability of human knowledge is one of our few certainties."

The portrait that emerges is unexpectedly charged. The book parallels the two world wars the couple lived through with the "private war that went on between them," a conflict that sometimes flared into bitter combat. This intimate look at their relationship adds a powerful, human dimension to their legendary status.

Literary Criticism:

Beyond biography Two Lives is a masterful work of literary criticism. Malcolm insightfully argues that even Stein's most hermetic writings are "submerged autobiography." She provides a key to understanding Stein’s work, writing that "the key of 'I' will not unlock the door to their meaning-you need a crowbar for that-but will sometimes admit you to a kind of anteroom of suggestion."

Malcolm's perceptive analysis covers works from the accessible Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas where she notes Stein "solves the koan of autobiography," to the "magisterial disorder" of The Making of Americans offering stunning insights into Stein’s complex literary mind.

Key Features:

• Investigative biography and literary criticism
• Explores the complex relationship of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas
• Insightful analysis of Stein's literary works
• Reveals the private struggles behind a legendary partnership

Praise for the Author:

"[Janet Malcolm] is among the most intellectually provocative of authors . . .able to turn epiphanies of perception into explosions of insight."
— David Lehman, Boston Globe

"Not since Virginia Woolf has anyone thought so trenchantly about the strange art of biography."
— Christopher Benfey