John Murray
Two Roads
Two Roads
Two Roads
How a generation of bold, sexually liberated and gender transgressive Bright Young Things in the 1920s and 30s rejuvenated the ageing Bloomsbury set, giving them a new and relevant voice.
'I wanted to climb inside this book and live there' PHOEBE WALLER-BRIDGE
'This witty, fascinating book is a delight. Read it' MIRIAM MARGOLYES
'Superb, sparky and reflective' The Spectator
'Gender fluidity? Pansexuality? Throuples? Chosen families? Cross-dressing? Kinks? Young Bloomsbury explores a place and time when queer life blossomed' Washington Post
Controversial before the First World War, the Bloomsbury Group became notorious in the 1920s. New members joined their ranks, pushing at boundaries, flouting conventions, and spurring their seniors to new heights of creative activity. Bloomsbury had always celebrated sexual equality and freedom in private, but this younger generation brought their transgressive lifestyles out into the open. Nino Strachey reveals a vivid history surprisingly relevant to our present day.
'One comes away slightly breathless with the sense of having left an excellent party full of wit and intrigue' TLS
'Highly entertaining and pacy, a must for Bloomsbury fans, young or old.' Country Life
Young Bloomsbury just BRIMS with the same kind of sexy vitality embodied by the characters Nino Strachey describes in such effervescent detail. Just when you might have wondered if there could possibly be room for a new and revealing study of a group of lives which have been so meticulously and extensively documented, Nino's exhilarating lens offers an entirely original and thrilling focus. As scepticism, admiration, envy, and confusion ebb and flow between one chattering, seductive, thinking, inspiring generation and another, this is Gatsby made real - Juliet Nicolson
Great fun and, for all fans of the Bloomsbury Group, enormously informative - like being transported back to "dancing the night hours away underground in the pitch dark and smoke-filled avant-garde nightclubs of that day", you never know who you're going to meet - Simon Fenwick, author of THE CRICHEL BOYS
With a deft turn of the Bloomsbury kaleidoscope, and an impressive gift for finding treasures in the archives, Nino Strachey reveals colourful new patterns of experiments in living which speak trenchantly to our own cultural moment - Mark Hussey, author of CLIVE BELL AND THE MAKING OF MODERNISM
A highly entertaining, pacy volume, based on considerable research, and a must for modern Bloomsbury fans, whether young or old. - Country Life
Lashings of lust and society larks - Daily Mail
After studying at Oxford University and the Courtauld Institute, Nino Strachey worked as a curator for the National Trust and English Heritage. Her first book, Rooms of Their Own, explored the homes of three writers linked to the Bloomsbury Group, revealing changing attitudes towards sexuality and gender in the 1920s and 30s. Nino is the last member of the Strachey family to have grown up at Sutton Court in Somerset, home of the Stracheys for over 300 years. She lives in West London with her husband and child, surrounded by the displaced portraits of her Strachey relations. Her relative Lytton was the first of many Stracheys to make their way to Bloomsbury. Follow her on Twitter @NinoStrachey.