Starry and Restless - by Julia Cooke (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

"Read this book and be enthralled." --The New York Times

A Parade Most-Anticipated Book of the Year

The page-turning story of three women reporters and the way they changed the world, work, and journalism.

She hid on a Red Cross boat to reach Omaha Beach on D-Day. She walked the abandoned streets of Hong Kong to take food to her daughter's father, a prisoner of war. She fought off the advances of overzealous Yugoslavian diplomats, found overlooked details of world history in a dentist's kitchen in Sarajevo. She traveled alone to Mexico. She traveled alone to Congo. She traveled alone to the American South. She married Hemingway. She married a Chinese poet-playboy-publisher, then married a British war hero. She fell in love with H. G. Wells. She gave birth and raised a child on her own. She landed on the front page of the newspaper. She wrote for the great magazines of her time--Vogue, The New Yorker, Harper's Bazaar. She wrote a play. She wrote a memoir. She wrote a genre-breaking travel narrative. She wrote bestsellers. She wrote and wrote and wrote. She changed the very way we think about writing and the way journalists craft stories--which sources are viable, which details are important--and the way women move and work in the world.

She was Martha Gellhorn. She was Emily "Mickey" Hahn. She was Rebecca West. Each woman was starry-eyed for success, for adventure, and helped ensure that other starry and restless women could make unforgettable lives for themselves. They fought for their lives and their work. They were praised and criticized for it all.

In language as lively and nimble, in passages as intimate and adventurous, and with conviction as fierce and indefatigable as her subjects' own, Julia Cooke's Starry and Restless plays out the stories of three women across three decades and five continents. Martha, Mickey, Rebecca--journalists, authors, mothers, lovers, friends. These women didn't just bear witness to the great changes of the twentieth century; their curiosity, grit, ambition, and stories changed the world.

Review Quotes

"[A] vibrant triple biography . . . [Cooke writes with] verve and expansiveness, immersing herself in her characters' perspectives, even as she sticks responsibly to the biographical record."
--Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times

"A banquet of detail, alongside a portrait of three women who truly broke with the expectations of their day . . . Their legacy is still with us, precious and precarious."
--Casey Schwartz, The Atlantic

"[Cooke] illuminates the profound complexity of women's lives without any apologizing, justifying, or moralizing . . . They leap and they return, they spin in place and they flee, they create nests and abandon them and create new ones and long for the old. They grow, learn, regret, reflect. Cooke's book offers the reader the rare gift of space without judgment, which isn't to say she endorses all of these women's choices . . . She presents them not as a blueprint but as a kind of permission, above all, to evolve: to move through many iterations of oneself and of womanhood."
--Sarah Menkedick, The New Republic

"[Cooke's] chronicle of [Hahn, West, and Gellhorn's] complex, downright astounding lives has the vividity and fluidity of fiction . . . Set within a revelatory history of women journalists, these entwined portraits are exhilarating."
--Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)

"Cooke offers readers a whirlwind tour behind the headlines and a fresh perspective on the origins of literary journalism."
--Mackenzie Farkus, The Christian Science Monitor

"A fascinating study of how three legendary reporters left their mark."
--Publishers Weekly

"The pace is thrillingly breakneck . . . The flashes of such a world presented in Starry and Restless yields some of the most unforgettable journalists of the 20th century."
--Cory Oldweiler, The Boston Globe

"A magnificent triple biography . . . Cooke tells their stories, recovering [the three journalists] as avatars of really major careers . . . it's a great, great book."
--Bill Goldstein, "Bill's Books"

"Cooke deftly captures [Hahn, West, and Gellhorn's] complex interpersonal relationships and perspectives on fame . . . An engrossing history of three remarkable women."
--Rebekah Kati, Library Journal

"Cooke is herself a perceptive writer, evocatively describing the women's journeys and their complex personalities . . . One thing is undeniable: Their work remains an impressive legacy."
--Anne Bartlett, BookPage

"Julia Cooke's sharp, insightful third book is a nuanced account of three pioneering female journalists and the ways their work helped shape the world."
--Kate Noah Gibson, Shelf Awareness

"A lively, sympathetic triple biography."
--Kirkus Reviews

"Starry and Restless begins with a gun hidden beneath a rumpled dress and takes off from there--across continents, through wars, and into uncharted territory. This richly narrated triple-threat biography reads like historical fiction. It is alive with urgency, and so vivid it nearly breathes. You can't help but think of its relevance during these troubling times."
--Susannah Cahalan, author of The Acid Queen

"In a rollicking tale, Julia Cooke takes readers to clandestine meetings with Chinese rebels in the red-light district of prewar Shanghai, to the scrappy Madrid hotel where journalists stockpiled hams and sheltered from bombings, and beyond. We see what it took for these brave women who covered conflicts around the world to fend off societal pressures and willfully, sometimes recklessly, always resourcefully, forge their own way."
--Julie Satow, author of When Women Ran Fifth Avenue

"If your image of the foreign correspondent of the 1930s and '40s is a man with a fedora and a cigar, think again. And if your image of the New Journalism is something first created by Tom Wolfe and his imitators decades later, think again there, too. Julia Cooke gives us a lively introduction to three remarkable women--Rebecca West, Emily Hahn, and Martha Gellhorn--who each played an underappreciated role in reinventing nonfiction storytelling."
--Adam Hochschild, author of American Midnight

"Julia Cooke's stunning book reclaims a heritage for narrative nonfiction, war reporting, and travel writing. Starry and Restless is an exciting, fascinating, and indispensable contribution to the story of twentieth-century writing."
--Anna Funder, author of Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell's Invisible Life

"Starry and Restless is a gripping saga--part history, part travelogue--of three formidable writers who lived through, covered, and shaped our understanding of some of the twentieth century's most momentous events. An adventure unto itself. I didn't want to leave the company of the trailblazing journalists Julia Cooke so expertly and beautifully brings to life."
--Bianca Bosker, author of Get the Picture

About the Author