$9.99 on Kindle, Nook, Apple Books, Kobo, Google PlayIsadora: A Sensational Life by Peter Kurth (261,000 words, 92 illustrations)
“How to make sense of this immense, complicated, beautiful and grotesque life? Many have tried: the Isadora Duncan literature is a tidal wave of loving reminiscence, obfuscation, self-glorification, infighting and supposition by those who knew her... And now there is Peter Kurth, sardonic yet appreciative, neither adoring nor denigrating... He has stylishly synthesized the literature to give us the fullest and most coherent account of the life to date.” — Robert Gottlieb, New York Times Book Review
“Peter Kurth has done a heroic job recreating this charismatic, complicated and ultimately deeply tragic figure, born in the heyday of the railroads and dead before the Great Depression. Isadora: A Sensational Life will likely become the standard biography. Kurth seems to have read everything that has been written about her; and while he lets critics, scholars and (most valuably) those who saw her dance sum up the evanescent Duncan artistry, he gives us the woman herself.” — Tim Page, Washington Post Book World
“[A] luminous portrait, aglow with the details of Duncan’s life and times. Mining the rich lode of Duncan sources — her own writings, recollections of her contemporaries and press coverage of the day — Kurth presents as complete a picture of the dance pioneer and proto-feminist as is possible. Although only a few minutes of Duncan’s dancing have been preserved on film, the vivid descriptions found here will conjure up moving images of one of the most original figures in dance history.” — Library Journal
“Kurth... tracks Duncan’s every triumph and tragedy, skillfully excerpts her writings and other invaluable sources, and sets her entire complex milieu in motion. In awe, he wisely restricts himself to precision reporting, leaving aesthetic and psychological interpretations for other scholars, who, like all of Kurth’s fascinated readers, will be grateful for his herculean effort and abiding respect.” — Booklist
“Mr. Kurth has... absorbed the material, like a dancer lodging choreography in muscle memory, and distilled the considerable detail into an immensely readable and poignant evocation of Duncan’s tumultuous life... Even sophisticated dance readers are likely to find their own revelations about Duncan’s art in the minutiae of her life and career, reported by Mr. Kurth at a discreet, sometimes amused distance from a subject he clearly admires in spite of himself.” — Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times
“There was a purity and seriousness to Duncan, and it’s one of Kurth’s virtues that — while he hasn’t stinted on the juicy gossip — he pays real attention to this... with the pitch-perfect narrative voice that makes this hefty book a lightning page-turner.” — Amanda Vaill, Chicago Tribune
“Peter Kurth has written the best biography we have of an astonishing and often underrated woman. He writes so well that only the weight of paper will occasionally remind you of his subject’s amplitude... Working from an assembly of sources vast enough to make you dizzy, he succeeds in making you love, hate and honor America’s greatest dancer, sometimes all at once. Earlier biographies have tended to focus on her, just as Isadora herself did. Kurth does better by giving vivid portraits of the lovers, friends and pupils whose voices make up a diverse chorus... Shrewdly, he gives space not only to Isadora’s wonderfully feckless chum, Mary Desti, the creator of the scarf that throttled her, but to Preston Sturges, Desti’s film-making son. Preston’s amused, slightly spiky voice is, you will find, the one closest to Kurth’s own in this marvelously rich and well-told book. Isadora deserves to be taught as well as read; this is how biography should be written.” — Sunday Times (London)
“Kurth takes care to place Duncan’s dancing in its social and artistic context but this isn’t a dance book. Kurth’s real interest is in the make-up of this ‘absurd genius’ and he rides the running-board of Isadora’s vagabond life with great aplomb.” — Sunday Telegraph (London)
“There is never a dull moment in Peter Kurth’s action-packed biography... Kurth has done her proud with his excellent biography.” — Daily Mail
“I would read anything written by Peter Kurth — his Anastasia had me walking round the house all day deep in the book until it was finished. Now at last we have a thorough study of Isadora Duncan which is compelling all the way to its terrifying conclusion.” — Hugo Vickers, author of Vivien Leigh, Cecil Beaton, Loving Garbo, and The Private World of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor
“From the opening words, explaining her eccentric Christian name in 1877, to the closing words describing her auto-strangulation fifty years and many pages later, this depiction of Isadora Duncan... is continually revealing, instructive, and captivating.” — Ned Rorem
“We may never know whether ‘one must have seen Isadora Duncan to die happy,’ as one of her contemporaries claimed, but one way to live happily, at least for a few days, is to read Peter Kurth’s Isadora. Exhaustively researched, intelligently rendered, it becomes, in its lovingly judicious and ultimately explosive unfurling, the definitive portrait of this — in the words of one of the few men not her lover — ‘figure of mourning and flame.’” — J. D. Landis
“A delightful read, a riveting account, written with grace and style, of a fascinating and extraordinary life.” — Gerald Clarke, author of Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland and Capote: A Biography