About Holy Skirts by René Steinke
National Book Award Finalist
In 1917 no one had ever seen a woman like the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. She regally stalked the streets of Greenwich Village wearing a bustle with a flashing taillight, a brassiere made from tomato cans, or a birdcage necklace; declaimed her poems to sailors in beer halls; and enthusiastically modeled in the nude for artists such as Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp, setting the city ablaze with her antics. Before today's outsized celebrities, there was the Baroness -- poet and artist, proto-punk rocker, sexual libertine, fashion avatar, and troublemaker. At the center of the Dadaist circle, the Baroness transformed herself into a living, breathing work of art.
Holy Skirts is a vivid imagining of the Baroness's story. Beginning in 1904, with Elsa's burlesque performance onstage in Berlin's Wintergarten cabaret, the adventures continue across Europe, through turbulent marriages and love affairs, until the Baroness finally lands in New York City, just before America enters the war. As she befriends Greenwich Village artists and writers, she defines herself as a poet, even as she breaks the bonds of female propriety.
"Steinke has resurrected a genuine personality, a stylish eccentric who might have been a staple of the tabloid gossip columns had they existed a century ago." New York Times Book Review
"Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Lorinhoven comes brilliantly to life in René Steinke's beautifully wrought historical novel. . . This poetic, sensuous, and visceral novel of a modern fictional woman (although clearly and keenly drawn from significant characters of the day) in dramatic factual times is another tour de force for Steinke." Baltimore Sun
“This fascinating and moving novel celebrates the Baroness as a remarkable women whose boldness took her to extremes that make most of us flinch.” Washington Post Book World
“Steinke is a consummate prose stylist. She has a poet’s ear for words.” Bookforum
"René Steinke's vividly imagined new novel brings to life the vibrant inner world of a woman whose genius rubbed elbows with insanity." Vogue
"Steinke's graceful prose adds intimate texture to a woman so cutting-edge that Duchamp called her 'the future.'" Entertainment Weekly
"René Steinke's fictional reimagining of Man Ray and Duchamp's mad muse is wonderfully insightful about the self-absorption required to be a fashion avatar." Atlantic Monthly